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She followed Chateaudoux down the winding stairs 
and out into the night. 



A BOOK OF 

AND HURRIED JOUfj&g'EYS 



BY 



JOHN BUCHAN 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 



PREFACE 

I HAVE never yet seen an adequate definition of 
Romance, and I am not going to attempt one. 
But I take it that it means in the widest sense 
that which affects the mind with a sense of wonder 
the surprises of life, fights against odds, weak 
things confounding strong, beauty and courage 
flowering in unlikely places. In this book we are 
concerned with only a little plot of a great pro- 
vince, the efforts of men to cover a certain space 
within a certain limited time under an urgent 
compulsion, which strains to the uttermost body 
and spirit. 

Why is there such an eternal fascination about 
tales of hurried journeys ? In the great romances 
of literature they provide many of the chief dra- 
matic moments, and, since the theme is common to 
Homer and the penny reciter, it must appeal to a 
very ancient instinct in human nature. The truth 



vi PREFACE 

seems to be that we live our lives under the twin 
categories of time and space, and that when the 
two come into conflict we get the great moment. 
Whether failure or success is the result, life is 
sharpened, intensified, idealized. A long journey 
eveti with the most lofty purpose may be a dull 
thing to read of, if it is made at leisure ; but a 
hundred yards may be a breathless business if only 
a few seconds are granted to complete it. For then 
it becomes a " sporting event," a race ; and the 
interest which makes millions read of the Derby 
is the same in a grosser form as that with which 
we follow an expedition straining to relieve a be- 
leaguered fort, or a man fleeing to sanctuary with 
the avenger behind him. 

I have included " escapes " in my title, for the 
conflict of space and time is of the essence of all 
escapes, since the escaper is either pursued or in 
instant danger of pursuit. But, as a matter of 
fact, many escapes are slow affairs and their in- 
terest lies rather in ingenuity than in speed. Such 
in fiction is the escape of Dantes in Monte Cristo 
from the dungeons of Chateau d'lf, and in history 
the laborious tunnelling performances of some of 
the prisoners in the American Civil War. The 



PREFACE vii 

escapes I have chosen are, therefore, of a special 
type the hustled kind, where there has been no 
time to spare, and the pursuer has either been 
hot-foot on the trail or the fugitive has moved 
throughout in an atmosphere of imminent peril. 

It is, of course, in the operations of war t that 
one looks for the greater examples. The most 
famous hurried journeys have been made by sol- 
diers by Alexander, Hannibal, and Julius Csesar ; 
by Marlborough in his dash to Blenheim; by 
Napoleon many times ; by Sir John Moore in his 
retreat to Corunna; by a dozen commanders in 
the Indian Mutiny ; by Stonewall Jackson and 
Jeb Stuart in their whirlwind rides ; by the fruit- 
less expedition to relieve Gordon* But the opera- 
tions of war are a little beside my purpose. In 
them the movement is, as a rule, only swift when 
compared with the normal pace of armies, and the 
cumbrousness and elaboration of the military 
machine lessen the feeling of personal adventure. 
I have included only one march of an army Mon- 
trose's, because his army was such a little one, its 
speed so amazing and its purpose so audacious, 
that its swoop upon Inverlochy may be said to 
belong to the class of personal exploits. For a 



vin 



PREFACE 



different reason I have included none of the mar- 
vellous escapes of the Great War. These are in a 
world of their own, and some day I may make a 
book of them. 

I have retold the stories, which are all strictly 
true, using the best evidence I could find and, in 
the case of the older ones, often comparing a dozen 
authorities. For the account of Prince Charlie's 
wanderings I have to thank my friend Professor 
Rait of Glasgow, the Historiographer Royal for 
Scotland. My aim has been to include the widest 
varieties of fateful and hasty journey, extending 
from the hundred yards or so of Lord Nithsdale's 
walk to the Tower Gate to the 4,000 miles of 
Lieutenants Parer and M'Intosh, from the ride 
of the obscure Dick King to the flights of princes, 
from the midsummer tragedy of Marie Antoinette 
to the winter comedy of Princess Clementina. 

J. B. 



CONTENTS 

I. THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 13 

II. THE RAILWAY RAID IN GEORGIA .... 39 

III. THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES AFTER WOR- 

CESTER 57 

IV. FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA ..... 91 
V. THE ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD. . 119 

VI. Two AFRICAN JOURNEYS ..... 169 

VII. THE GREAT MONTROSE 193 

VIII. THE FLIGHT OF LIEUTENANTS PARER AND 

M'lNTOSH ACROSS THE WORLD ... 223 

IX. LORD NITHSDALE'S ESCAPE 237 

X. SIR ROBERT GARY'S RIDE TO EDINBURGH . . 251 

XI. THE ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA . . 265 

XII. ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD .... 283 



LIST OF PLATES 

She followed Chateaudoux down the winding stairs and 
out into the Bight Irontispiece 

Penderel took alarm and splashed through the water, 
followed by his King 64 

Then another man joined the first, lit a cigar, and 
the two walked off together 100 

A storm and a glimpse of two war-ships forced them 
to land 136 

He and his two horses did an average of not less than 
eighty miles a day ....... 184 

Across the moor they saw two figures advancing . 208 

A crowd of Arabs approaching with obviously hostile 
intent 232 

The sentries in the dim light were unsuspicious and 
let them pass 248 



I 

THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 



THE FUGH1 TO VARENNES 
I 

OK the night of Monday, 20th June, in the year 1791, 
the baked streets of Paris were cooling after a day of 
cloudless sun. The pavements were emptying and the 
last hackney coaches were conveying festive citizens 
homewards. In the ,Rue de PEchelle, at the corner 
where it is cut by the Rue St. Honor6, and where the 
Hotel de Normandie stands to-day, a hackney carriage, 
of the type which was then called a " glass coach," 
stood waiting by the kerb. It stood opposite the door 
of one Ronsin, a saddler, as if expecting a fare ; but 
the windows were shuttered, and the honest Ronsin 
had gone to bed. On the box sat a driver in the 
ordinary clothes of a coachman, who while he waited 
took snuff with other cabbies, and with much good- 
humoured chaff declined invitations to drink. 

The hour of eleven struck ; the streets grew emptier 
and darker; but still the coach waited. Presently 

16 



16 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

from the direction of the Tuileries came a hooded lady 
-with two hooded children, who, at a nod from the 
driver, entered the coach. Then came another veiled 
lady attended by a servant, and then a stout male 
figure with a wig and a round hat, who, as he passed 
the sentries at the palace gate, found his shoe-buckle 
undone and bent to fasten it, thereby hiding his face. 
The glass coach was now nearly full ; but still the 
driver waited. 

The little group of people all bore famous names. 
On the box, in the driver's cloak, sat Court Axel 
Fersen, a young Swedish nobleman who uad vowed 
his life to the service of the Queen of France. The 
first hooded lady, whose passport proclaimed that she 
was a Russian gentlewoman, one Baroness de Korff, 
was the Duchess de Tourzel, the governess of the royal 
children. The other hooded lady was no other than 
Madame Elizabeth, the King's sister, One of the 
children was the little Princess Royal, afterwards 
known as the Duchess d'Angouleme ; the other, also 
dressed like a girl, was the Dauphin. The stout gentle- 
man in the round hat was King Louis XVI. The 
coach in the Rue de 1'Echelle was awaiting the Queen. 

For months the royal family had been prisoners in 
the Tuileries, while the Revolution w^rched forward* 

(2,809) 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 17 

in swift stages. They were prisoners in the strictest 
sense, for they had been forbidden even the customary 
Easter visit to St. Cloud. The puzzled, indolent king 
was no better than a cork tossed upon yeasty waters. 
Mirabeau was dead Mirabeau who might have saved 
the monarchy ; now the only hope was to save the 
royal family, for the shades were growing very dark 
around it. Marie Antoinette, the Queen, who, as 
Mirabeau had said, was " the only man the King had 
about him," had resolved to make a dash for freedom. 
She woul<J leave Paris, even France, and seek her 
friends beyond the borders. The National Militia and 
the National Guards were for the Revolution ; but the 
army of Bouill6 on the eastern frontier, composed 
largely of German mercenaries, would do its general's 
orders, and Bouill6 was staunch for the crown. Count 
Fersen had organized the plan, and the young Duke 
de Choiseul, a nephew of the minister of Louis XV., 
had come to Paris to settle the details. A coach had 
been built for the journey, a huge erection of leather 
and wood, of the type then called a berline, painted 
yellow, upholstered in white velvet, and drawn by no 
less than eleven horses. It was even now standing out- 
side the eastern gate, and Fersen was waiting with Ma 
hacfcaev carriage to conduct the royal fugitives thither. 



18 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

But where was the Queen ? Marie Antoinette, 
dressed as a maid and wearing a broad gipsy hat, 
had managed to pass the palace doors ; but rumours 
had got abroad, and even as she stood there leaning 
on a servant's arm the carriage of Lafayette dashed 
up to the arch, for he had been summoned by the 
Commandant, who represented the eyes of the National 
Assembly. The sight flurried her, 'and she and her 
servant took the wrong turning. They hastened to- 
wards the river, and then back, but found no waiting 
coach. 

The chimes struck midnight, and at long last Persen 
from the box in the Rue de 1'Echelle saw the figure 
which he knew so well, the lady in the gipsy hat who 
was the Queen. The party was now complete. The 
door was shut ; the driver plied his whip, and the 
coach started northward through the sleeping city, 
Up the street where Mkabeau had lived they went, 
till in the Rue de dichy the coachman stopped to ask 
a question at a house about the great berline. He was 
told that it had left half an hour ago. The carriage 
then turned eastward and passed through the eastern 
gate. There stood the berline, with two yellow liveried 
gentlemen of the Guard to act as postilions. 
The % King and Queen, the two children, Madame 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 19 

Elizabeth, and the so-called Baroness de Korff, free 
now from the cramped hackney coach, reclined at 
ease on the broad cushions. The hackney coach was 
then turned adrift citywards, and was found next 
morning upset in a ditch. Again Count Fersen took 
the reins, and as the eastern sky was paling to dawn 
they reached the end of the first stage, the post and 
relay station of Bondy. 

Fresh horses were waiting and fresh postilions, and 
one of the gentlemen-in-waiting took Fersen's place on 
the box. Fersen walked round to the side where the 
Queen sat and took a brief farewell. Marie Antoin- 
ette's hand touched his and slipped upon his finger a 
broad ring of very pale gold. The young Swede turned 
and rode towards Bourget and the highway to Brussels* 
so passing out of the history of France. 



n 

Daylight broadened and the great berline rumbled 
along the highroad, being presently joined by a cab- 
riolet carrying two of the Queen's maids and a collec- 
tion of baggage. The royal farnily, no longer drowsy 
in the fresh morning air, fell into good spirits. A 
matter of an hour and a half had been wasted at the 



20 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

start, Tbut now the coach travelled briskly at a speed 
of something like seven miles an hour. They be- 
lieved the escape to have already succeeded, and talked 
happily of their plans. Soon the suburbs and the 
market gardens were left behind, and long before they 
reached the posting station of Meaux they were in a 
land of deep meadows and cornfields. 

Their plan was to go by way of Chalons, Ste. Mene- 
hould, and Clermont to Varennes, where Bouill6 would 
await them. But meantime cavalry patrols from 
Bouille's army were to come west into Champagne and 
be ready at each stage to form up behind and make 
a screen between them and their enemies. The weak 
points of the scheme are clear. Had the, royal family 
divided itself and gone by different routes to the fron- 
tier in humbler equipages there would have been little 
risk of capture. But a coach so vast as the new 
yellow berline was bound to excite inquiry as soon 
as it left the main highways and entered the side roads 
of Champagne and the Argonne. Moreover, the cav- 
alry patrols of Bouille, most of them Germans, would 
certainly rouse comment and suspicion, for the folk 
of the little towns as far as the Meuse were vehement 
for the Revolution. These clumsy contrivances were 
sops to the King, who had as little ingenuity and 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 21 

imagination as he had resolution. Had Marie An- 
toinette and Fersen had a free hand they would have 
planned differently. 

At Meaux the travellers were in the rich Marne 
valley, and presently they turned off the main road 
which runs by Epernay, and struck across the table- 
land, made famous by the late war, where flow the 
streams of the Grand and Petit Morin. They had a 
picnic breakfast in the coach, drinking from a single 
loving cup, and using their loaves as platters on which 
to cut the meat. All were very happy and at ease. 
The children walked up the long hill from the Marne 
valley. At the post-houses the King got out to stretch 
his legs and talk to the bystanders. It was a risky 
business, for the face of the man in the round hat was 
on every Treasury note. Louis was indeed recognized* 
- At a place called Viels Maisons a postilion recognized 
him but said nothing ; it was not his business, he 
argued in true peasant fashion. 

It grew scorchingly hot, and the wide grassy fields 
slumbered under a haze of heat. About two they 
reached a place called Chaintrix, where, in the post- 
house, was one Vallet, who had been in Paris. He 
Baw and recognized the king and told the news to his 
father-in-law, the postmaster. Both were enthusi- 



22 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

astic royalists, but it is probable that the news spread 
to some who were not, and news flies fast through a 
countryside. This Vallet was indeed a misfortune, for 
he insisted himself on riding with the leaders, and 
twice let the horses down, so that another hour at 
least was wasted. 

About four o'clock in the afternoon the berline, ac- 
companied by the cabriolet, reached Chalons. Here 
secrecy was obviously impossible, for it was a big town 
filled with people who had seen both King and Queen. 
But these townsfolk did not seek trouble for them- 
selves ; it was not their business to stop their Majesties 
if they had a fancy for a jaunt to the east. It would 
seem that one man at least tried to force their hand, 
and, finding he could do nothing with the municipal 
authorities, galloped on ahead, passing the coach as it 
halted at the foot of a hill, and carrying the news to 
more dangerous regions. But at any rate the berline 
was now free of Chalons, which had been considered the 
main danger, and a straight lonely road led for twenty- 
five miles through the Champagne Pouilleuse to Ste. 
Menehould at the foot of the Argonne. In seven or 
eight miles they would be at the tiny bridge of Somme- 
Vesle, where the infant trickle of the river Vesle ran 
in a culvert below the road. There stood a long farm* 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 23 

house close up to the kerb, and nothing else could be 
seen in the desolate grey-green countryside. On the 
Chalons side there was a slight rise and beyond that a 
hill, so that dwellers at the post-house had no long 
prospect of the road to the west. Had the configura- 
tion of the land been otherwise, history might have 
been written differently. 

Now at Somme-Vesle the first of Bouill6's cavalry 
guards were to meet and form up behind the King. 
The posse was under the Duke de Choiseul, and con- 
sisted chiefly of German mercenaries. It professed to 
be an escort for a convoy of treasure, but the excuse 
was lame. What treasure could be coming that way, 
and if it was a cavalry patrol from BouiMs army, 
why was it flung out towards the base and not towards 
the enemy ? 

According to the time-table drawn up by Fersen 
and Choiseul, the King would arrive at Somme-Vesle 
at one o'clock. Choiseul, with his half-troop of Ger- 
man hussars, arrived in time and waited anxiously 
through the grilling afternoon. Long afterwards he 
told the story to Alexandre Dumas, the novelist. At 
first, apart from^his fifty mercenaries, there was no 
one there except the jostlers in the post-house and a 
few peasants in the fields. Presently suspicion grew. 



24 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

The peasants began to leave their work and crowd 
round the hussars till the soldiers were greatly out- 
numbered. There was some trouble afoot with the 
tenants of a neighbouring landowner, and it was be- 
lieved that ChoiseuTs men were there to exercise force. 
Word came that the neighbouring villages were rising, 
for the Revolution had made almost every village a 
little military post. 

The long dusty road remained baked and empty, 
and the barren downs seemed to swim in the after- 
noon glare. The road was silent, but not so the neigh- 
bourhood of the post-house. Peasants crowded round 
with questions. Why did not the foreigners unsaddle ? 
Why did they not ride down the road to meet their . 
treasure ? Presently the rumour spread, Heaven knows 
how ! that the Bang was expected to pass, and the 
crowd became greater. Choiseul sat on his horse 
through the sultry hours till he looked at his watch 
and found that it was five o'clock. 

Clearly the King had not started at all. That 
seemed the only sane conclusion. He gave the order 
to wheel about and return. He had fresh horses put 
into his own travelling carriage and gave a note for 
the officers in command at Ste. Menehould and Cler- 
mont, mentioning that he doubted whether the treasure 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 25 

would come that day. Then he took his hussars back 
along the road they had come, and at the hamlet of 
Orbeval turned to the left into the Argonne forest in 
case his appearance in Ste. Menehould should arouse 
suspicion. By a little after half-past five the last 
hussar had gone, the peasants had moved off to supper, 
and the white road was again deserted. 

A quarter of an hour later the berline arrived. The 
King, who was following the road with a map and a 
guide-book, asked the name of the place and was told 
Somme-Vesle. Remembering that there Choiseul was 
to have met them, doubt for the first time seems to 
have fallen upon the little party. That quarter of 
an hour, as it turned out, was to be the difference 
between success and failure. 



in 

It was now early evening, and with fresh horses the 
berline rolled through the pastures and lanes to where, 
with the setting sun upon them, rose the woody ridges 
of the Argonne. Just below the lift of the hills lay 
Ste. Menehould. At the hour of sunset its streets had 
the pleasant stir which evening brings to a country 
town. Men and women were gossiping and drinking 



26 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

outside their doors. There was a handful of French 
dragoons under Captain Dandoins in the place, sent 
by Bouille", and at the door of the post-house stood one 
Jean Baptiste Drouet who had once been a dragoon 
in the Conde regiment. He was a dark, loutish fellow, 
saturnine of face, still young, very strong, active and 
resolute. He was a fervent patriot, too, and that 
afternoon he had heard strange rumours coming from 
the west. As he saw the cabriolet enter with its moun- 
tain of bonnet boxes, and then the huge berline with 
its yellow-liveried guards, he realized that something 
out of the common was happening. The green blinds 
were up to let in the evening air, and the faces of both 
King and Queen were plain to the onlookers. The 
berline did not halt, but rumbled over the bridge of 
Aisne, and up into the high woods. But Drouet had 
seen enough to make the thing clear to him. The 
King and Queen were in flight ; they were going to- 
wards Metz ! 

The ex-dragoon was a man of strong resolution and 
quick action. The drums were beat ; Dandoins and 
his troop were arrested and disarmed, and with an 
other old dragoon of Cond6, one Guillaume, an inn^ 
keeper, Drouet set off hell-for-leather on the trail. 

The great coach with its eleven horses and i1^ yellow- 



THE PLIGHT TO VARENNES 27 

liveried guards on the rumble, climbed slowly up to 
the summit of the Argonne ridge. There were about 
400 feet to climb, and it was some four miles to the 
crest. After that came the little village of Islettes 
in a hollow, and then a stretch of four miles to the 
town of Clermont in the valley of the river Aire. 
There the royal road must turn at right angles 
down the Aire to Varennes, which lay nine miles off, 
a flat straight road in the valley bottom. Drouet and 
Guillaume had the last two horses left in Ste. Mene- 
hould, and the berline had an hour's start of them. 
They believed that the King was going to Metz, and 
that what was before them was a stern chase on 
the highroad. 

The berline reached Clermont about twenty minutes 
to ten. At Clermont there were royal troops, and 
Drouet had no notion how to deal with them ; but 
he hoped somehow to raise the people in the town 
on his sMe. The occupants of the berline had now 
lost all their high hopes of the morning. They realized 
that they were late and that somehow their plans 
were miscarrying, and they were in a fever to get past 
Varennes into the protection of Bouille's army. It 
took a quarter of an hour to change horses at Cler- 
mont, and then about ten o'clock the Metz road was 



28 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

relinquished and the great vehicle lumbered off at its 
best pace down the Aire valley. 

About the same moment Drouet and Guillaume 
came within a mile of Clermont. The night had grown 
very dark and cloudy, though there was somewhere a 
moon. They heard voices and discovered it was the 
postilions from Ste. Menehould turning homewards. 
These postilions had a story to tell. The berline was 
not on the Metz road. They had heard the orders 
given to turn northward to Varennes. 

Drouet was a man of action, and in a moment his 
mind was made up. He must somehow get ahead of 
the royal carriage which was on the road in the valley 
below. The only chance was to cut off the corner 
by taking to the woody ridge of the Argonne which 
stretched some 300 feet above the open plain. Now 
along that eastern scarp of the Argonne runs a green 
ride which had once been a Roman road. He and 
his companion galloped through the brushwood till 
they struck the ride. 

It was, as Carlyle has called it, " a night of spurs.' 5 
Three parties were straining every nerve to reach 
Varennes : the anxious King and Queen in the great 
berline, jolting along the highway ; the Duke de Choi- 
seul, who had taken a short cut from Somme-Vesle, 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 29 

avoiding Ste. Menehould, plunging with his hussars 
among the pathless woods ; and Drouet and Guillaume 
making better speed along the green ride, while from 
the valley on their right the night wind brought them 
the far-off sound of the Kong's wheels. There seemed 
still a good chance of escape, for at Varennes was 
Bouille's son with more hussars, waiting in that part 
of the village which lay east of the Aire bridge. 

Seven miles after he left the highway Drouet came 
to an ancient stone set up in the forest which bears the 
name of the Dead Girl a place only too famous in the 
Argonne fighting in the Great War. There he took 
the green ride to the right, and coming out of the 
woods saw the lights of Varennes a little before him. 
The town seemed strangely quiet. He and Guillaume 
had done eleven miles of rough going within an hour ; 
now it was only eleven, and as they stopped to rest 
their panting beasts they listened for the sound of 
wheels. But there was no sound. Had the berline 
with its fateful load beaten them and crossed the bridge 
into the protection of Bouille's men ? 



30 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 



IV 

Drouet rushed into the taverns to ask if any late 
revellers had seen a great coach go through. The 
revellers shook their heads. No coach that night had 
passed through Varennes. Suddenly came a cry, and 
he looked behind him up the long hill of the Clermom 
road. There, on the top, were the headlights of the 
coach. It halted, for it was expecting Bouille's escort. 
The Clermont postilions were giving trouble ; they 
declared that they were not bound to go down the hill, 
for the horses were needed early next morning to 
carry in the hay. At last the coach started, and the 
creak of its brakes could be heard on the hill. Drouet 
ran into the inn called " The Golden Arm," crying on 
every man who was for France to come out and stop 
the berline, since inside it was the King. 

There was only one thing for him to do, to hold the 
bridge over the Aire. Now, at the bridgehead stood a 
great furniture van without horses, waiting to start for 
somewhere in the morning. Drouet and his handful 
of assistants pulled it across the bridge and blocked 
the approach. Meantime one Sausse, a tallow chandler 
and the procurator of the town, had appeared on the 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 31 

scene, and seen to the rousing of every household on 
the west side of tjhe river. 

Half-way down the hill to the bridge the road goes 
through an archway under an old church. At that 
archway the only two men of the company who had 
arms took up position, and when the berline arrived 
challenged it and brought it to a stand. Passports 
were demanded, and as the Baroness de Korff fumbled 
for them the Queen looked out of the window. She 
begged the gentlemen, whoever they might be, to get 
the business over quickly, as "she was desirous of 
reaching the end of her journey as soon as might be/' 
It was an ill-omened phrase which was long remem- 
bered. 

Meantime the two armed men had increased their 
numbers, and some of Bouill6's German hussars joined 
the crowd, more or less drunk. The cabriolet had 
also been stopped and the maids in it hustled into the 
inn. But it seemed that the passports were in order, 
and the Varennes officials were prepared to let the 
coach continue on its way. It was the crisis of the 
French monarchy. Escape seemed once more certain, 
when Drouet intervened. He knew that Bouille's son 
was waiting beyond the river, and that Bouill6 himself 
would arrive soon after dawn with ample forces. What 



32 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

lie sought to gain was time ; on no account must the 
King cross the Aire till morning. 

The embarrassed officials yielded to his threats and 
fury. " If there is any doubt/' said the procurator, 
" it will do no harm to wait for daylight. It is a dark 
night and the beasts are tired." He would endorse 
the passports in the morning. He assisted the King 
and the Queen to alight, and escorted them to his 
own house. Hope was not yet wholly gone, for there 
were still Choiseul and his hussars blundering through 
the Argonne woods. Meantime the fierce Drouet had 
had the tocsin sounded and every soul in Varennes 
was in the streets, waiting on some happening, they 
knew not what. 

Just about dawn Choiseul arrived with his German 
troopers. He saw what was astir, and had he had 
Frenchmen in his command all might have been saved. 
He urged them to rescue the King, and ordered them to 
charge to clear the streets, which they did, and formed 
up outside M. Sausse's house, in which Marie Antoin- 
ette and her two children were lying huddled on 
truckle beds. Outside was the perpetual noise of drums 
and men ; every one who could find any kind of 
weapon trooped up to it and thronged the square. 
Meantime, young Bouilte across the river had heard 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 33 

the tocsin, and, being uncertain what to do, had re- 
turned to Ms father. 

When the morning light broadened the whole neigh- 
bourhood was gathered outside the procurator's house. 
M. Sausse, a devotee of official decorum, felt compelled 
to endorse the passports and let the royal family con- 
tinue their journey. But Drouet had other views, and 
these views were shared by the crowd in tlie streets. 
Choiseul, had his mercenaries been of any value, had 
still the game in his hands. For the second time he 
ordered them to charge. But the German hussars, 
comprehending nothing except that there was a large 
number of formidable citizens opposed to them, sat 
still on their horses. The King in his green coat ap- 
peared at the window of his lodging and was greeted 
with cheers and with something else which meant the 
ruin of his hopes, for the mob of ten thousand with 
one voice shouted, " Back to Paris ! " 

About six o'clock there arrived at Varennes two 
men from the Council in Paris, Bayon and Romeuf. 
They had ridden madly all day and night, and had 
brought a demand from the Council for their Majesties' 
immediate return. The Queen was furious, and flung 
the message on the ground. But the King had made 
up his mind. He had had enough of this undignified 



34 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

secrecy and uncomfortable jolting. He would go back 
to Paris to the people with, whom he was so popular. 

Indeed, he had no other choice. The advance guards 
of Bouill6's horse were even then appearing on the 
heights behind the Aire, but there were 10,000 men 
in Varennes, and nothing but artillery could have 
cleared the place. Bouille, even had he been in 
time, could have done nothing. When, about seven 
o'clock, the royalist general himself looked down on 
the bridge, he saw a cloud of dust on the Clermont 
road which told him that the berline had begun its 
return journey, accompanied by thousands of march- 
ing citizens. The adventure was over* What had 
seemed so certain had shipwrecked on a multitude 
of blunders, and the strange perversities of fortune. 
The King and Queen were returning to a prison from 
-which there was to be no outlet but death. 



What of the young Swede, Count Axel Fersen, whom 
we last saw at Bondy receiving from Marie Antoinette 
the broad gold ring ? The lovers of queens have for 
the most part been tragically fated, and his lot was no 
exception to the rule. It is hard for us to-day to 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 35 

judge of the charm of Marie Antoinette ; from her 
portraits her figure and features seem too heavy, 
though her hair and colouring were beautiful ; but 
she seems to have had a share of that inexplicable 
compelling power which certain women have possessed 
Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Mary of Scots, Elizabeth 
of Bohemia which makes men willing to ride on their 
behalf over the edge of the world. Fersen, who had 
worshipped her at first sight when a boy in his teens, 
was to spend the nineteen remaining years of his life 
a slave of tragic and tender memories. After her 
death he became a " fey " man, silent, abstracted, 
grave beyond other men, and utterly contemptuous of 
danger, one like Sir Palamede 

" Who, riding ever through a lonely world, 
Whene'er on adverse shield or helm he came 
Against the danger desperately hurled, 
Crying her name." 

He rose to be a famous soldier and marshal of the 
Swedish armies, and at the age of fifty-five was con- 
fronted with a riot in Stockholm. Inside the church 
,of Riddenholm were the nobles of Sweden, barricaded 
and safe ; outside on the steps he stood alone, having 
been dragged from his carriage, his sword in his right 



36 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

hand and on bis left the ring of the Queen of France, 
which the people of the North believed to be a thing 
of witchcraft. 

For a little he held the steps, for no man dared come 
within the sweep of his terrible sword or the glow of 
his more terrible ring. At last some one thought of 
stones. They were flung from a distance, and pre- 
sently he was maimed and crushed till he died. Then, 
and not till then, the mob came near his body, shield- 
ing their eyes from the gleam of the ring. One man, 
a fisherman, Zaffel by name, took his axe and hacked 
the finger off while the crowd cheered. Averting his 
head he plucked at the thing, and, running to the 
river bank, flung it far into the stream. 

The rest of the story of the ring is as wild a legend 
as ever came out of the North. It is said that Zaffel, 
going fishing next morning after the fury of the riots 
was over, came into a lonely reach of water and 
found his boat standing still. He looked up at the 
masthead, and there, clasping it, saw a hand lacking 
one finger. The mutilated hand forced the boat for- 
ward against tide and wind, and when he tried the 
tiller he found that the tiller had no effect upon the 
course. All day he sat in the boat shivering with 
terror, till in the cold twilight he saw in front of him 



THE FLIGHT TO VAREOTES 37 

a white rock in the stream and upon a ledge of it 
Fersen's ring. He took it and glanced up at the 
masthead. The hand had now recovered its lost 
finger and had disappeared, and his boat was free 
once more to obey his direction. 

In the early dawn of the next day he was back at 
Stockholm, babbling nonsense and singing wild songs, 
beyond doubt a madman. At that moment in the 
Riddenholm church the nobles, who had left Fersen 
to die, were gathered round his coffin in the act of 
burial. Suddenly something glimmered in the dark 
folds of the pall, and they saw with terror that it was 
the Queen's ring. When the coffin was lowered into 
the grave the gravediggers dared not fling earth upon 
the jewel. They feared that the dead man's spirit 
would haunt them, so they gave the ring to Fersen's 
family, with whom it remains to this day. 



II 

THE RAILWAY RAH) IN GEORGIA 



THE RAILWAY RAID IN GEORGIA 

THE time is the spring of 1862, the second year of 
the American Civil War. The scene is the State 
of Tennessee; the Confederates are concentrating at 
Corinth, Mississippi, and the two Northern forces of 
Grant and Buell are moving on that spot. A month 
before Grant had won the important action ol Fort 
Donelson. A month later he was to win the battle of 
Shiloh. 

In BuelPs army was General 0. M. Mtchel, com- 
manding the Northern forces in Middle Tennessee and 
protecting Nashville with a force of some 17,000 men. 
Now, President Lincoln especially desired that Eastern 
Tennessee should be cleared of the enemy, since it was 
one of the latter's chief supply grounds. General 
Mitchel believed that Corinth would soon fall, and that 
the next movement would be eastward towards Chat- 
tanooga, that key-point on the Tennessee river which 
was later the scene of one of Grant's most famous 

41 



42 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

victories. He thought, rightly, that if he could press 
into the enemy's country and occupy strategical points 
ahead, he would pave the way for Grant's march 
eastward. 

On the 8th of April the Northerners won the battle 
of Pittsburg Landing. Next day Mitchel marched 
south from Shelbyville into Alabama and seized Hunts- 
ville. From there he sent a detachment westward to 
open up communication with the Northern troops at 
Pittsburg Landing. On the same day he himself took 
another detachment seventy miles by rail and arrived 
without difficulty within thirty miles of Chattanooga, 
two hours from the key position in the West, There, 
however, he stuck fast, and the capture of Chattanooga 
was delayed for two years. He failed because another 
plan had failed, the plan which is the subject of this 
story. 

Chattanooga at the moment was practically without 
a garrison ; but in Georgia there were ample Confederate 
troops, and the Georgia State Railway and the East 
Tennessee Railway could bring them up in great 
force at short notice. If Mitchel was to seize and 
hold Chattanooga these lines must be cut for long 
enough to enable him to consolidate his position. 
Now, in his army was a certain spy of the name of 



THE RAILWAY RAID IN GEORGIA 43 

James J. Andrews, one of these daring adventurers 
who, in a civil war of volunteers, many of whom were 
as yet without regular uniforms, could perform exploits 
impossible in a normal campaign. Andrews conceived 
the idea of a raid on the Confederate railways, and 
Mitchel approved. Before he left Shelbyville he 
authorized Andrews to take twenty-four men, enter 
the enemy's territory and burn the bridges on the vital 
railways. 

The men were selected from three Ohio regiments, 
and told only that they were required for secret and 
dangerous service. They exchanged their uniforms 
for the ordinary dress worn by civilians in the South, 
and carried no arms except revolvers. On the 7th 
of April, by the roadside a mile east of Shelbyville, 
in the late evening, .they met Andrews, who told them 
his plan. In small detachments of three or four they 
were to go east into the Cumberland Mountains and 
work southward, and on the evening of the third day 
rendezvous with Andrews at Marietta in Georgia, 
more than 200 miles distant. If any one asked them 
questions they were to declare that they were Ken- 
tuckians going to join the Confederate army. 

The weather was bad and the travellers were much 
delayed by swollen streams. This led Andrews to 



44 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

believe that Mitchel's column would also be delayed, 
so he sent secret word to the different groups that the 
attempt would be postponed one day, from Friday to 
Saturday, 12th April. Of the little party one lost his 
road and never arrived at the destination ; two reached 
Marietta, but missed the rendezvous; and two were 
captured and forced into the Confederate army. 
Twenty, however, early on the morning of Saturday, 
12th April, met in Andrews' room at the Marietta 
Hotel. 

They had travelled from Chattanooga as ordinary 
passengers on the Georgia State Railway. The sight 
of that railway impressed them with the difficulties 
of their task, for it was crowded with trains and 
soldiers. In order to do their work they must capture 
an engine, but the station where the capture was to 
be made Big Shanty had recently been made a 
Confederate camp. Their job was, therefore, to seize 
an engine in a camp with soldiers all round them, to 
run it from one to two hundred miles through enemy 
country, and to dodge or overpower any trains they 
might meet no small undertaking for a score of men. 
Some were in favour of abandoning the enterprise, but 
Andrews stuck stubbornly to his purpose. He gave 
his final instructions, and the twenty proceeded to the 



THE RAILWAY RAID IN GEORGIA 45 

ticket office to purchase tickets for different stations 
on the line to Chattanooga. 

For eight "miles they rode in comfort as passengers, 
till at Big Shanty they saw the Confederate tents in 
the misty morning. It had been a drizzling April 
dawn, and a steady rain was now beginning. The train 
stopped at Big Shanty for breakfast, and this gave them 
their chance, for the conductor, the engine-driver, and 
most of the passengers descended for their meal, 
leaving the train unguarded. 

Among the twenty were men who understood the 
stoking and driving of railway engines, and it did not 
take long to uncouple three empty vans, the loco- 
motive, and the tender. Brown and Knight, the two 
engineers, and the fireman climbed into the cab, and 
the rest clambered into the rear goods van no easy 
job, for the cars stood on a high bank. A sentry with 
rifle in hand stood not a dozen feet from the engine, 
watching the whole proceedings, but no move was made 
until it was too late. Andrews gave the signal, the 
wheels slipped at first on the greasy metals, and then 
the train moved forward ; and before the uproar in the 
station behind began it had gathered speed. 

The first and worst problem was the passing of 
trains coming from the north. There were two trains 



46 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

on the time-table which, had to be passed at certain 
stations, and there was also a local goods train not 
scheduled, which might be anywhere. Andrews hoped 
to avoid the danger of collision by running according 
to the schedule of the train he had captured, until the 
goods train was passed, and then to increase to topmost 
speed till he reached the Oostenaula and Chickamauga 
bridges, burn them and pass on through Chattanooga 
to Mitchel as he moved up from Huntsville. He hoped 
to reach his chief early in the afternoon, 

It was a perfectly feasible plan, and it would almost 
certainly have been carried out but for that fatal day'a 
delay. On Friday, the day originally fixed, all the 
trains had been up to time, and the weather had been 
good ; but on that Saturday, as luck would have it, 
the whole railway was in disorder, every train was late, 
and two " extras " had been put on, of which the 
leader had no notion. Had he known this, even a man 
of his audacity would scarcely have started, and the 
world would have been the poorer by the loss of a 
stirring tale. 

The party had to make frequent stops, particularly 
between stations, to tear up the track, cut the telegraph 
wires, and load on sleepers to be used for bridge burn- 
ing ; and also at wayside stations to take on wood and 



THE RAILWAY RAID IN GEORGIA 47 

water. At the latter Andrews bluffed the officials by 
telling them that he was one of General Beauregard's 
officers, and was running a powder train through to 
that General at Corinth. Unfortunately he had no 
proper instruments for pulling up the rails, and it was 
important to keep to the schedule of the captured train, 
so they tore light-heartedly past towns and villages, 
trusting to luck, and exhilarated by the successful 
start of their wild adventure. 

At a station called Etowah they found the " Yonah," 
an old engine owned by an iron company, standing 
with steam up ; but their mind was all on the local 
goods train, so they left it untouched. Thirty miles 
on from Big Shanty they reached Kingston, where a 
branch line entered from the town of Rome. On the 
branch a train was waiting for the mail that is to say, 
their captured train and Andrews learned that the 
local goods was expected immediately ; so he ran on 
to a side track, and waited for it. 

Presently it arrived, and to the consternation of the 
little party it carried a red flag to show that another 
train was close behind it. Andrews marched boldly 
across to its conductor and asked what was the meaning 
of the railway being blocked in this fashion when he 
had orders to take the powder straight through to 



48 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

General Beauregard ? In reply he was told that Mitchel 
had captured Huntsville and was said to be marching 
on Chattanooga, and that everything was being cleared 
out of that town. Andrews ordered him to move his 
train down the line out of the way, and he obeyed. 

It seemed an eternity to the party before the 
" extra " arrived, and to their dismay when it turned 
up they saw that it bore another red flag. The reason 
given was that it was too heavy for one engine and had 
therefore to be made up into two sections. So began 
another anxious wait. The little band Andrews 
with the engine-drivers and fireman in the cab, and 
the rest taking the place of Beauregard's ammunition 
in the goods vans had to preserve composure as best 
they could, with three trains clustered round them 
and every passenger in the three extremely curious 
about the mysterious powder train into which the 
morning mail had been transformed. For one hour 
and five minutes they waited at Kingston, the men in 
the goods vans being warned by Andrews to be ready 
to fight in case of need. He himself kept close to the 
station in case some mischief-maker should send an 
inquiring telegram down the line. At long last came 
the second half of the local, and as soon as it passed 
the end of their side track the adventurers moved on. 



THE RAILWAY RAID IN GEORGIA 49 

But the alarm had now been raised behind them. 
From the midst of the confusion at Big Shanty two 
men set out on foot along the track to make some effort 
to capture the Northerners. They were railwayman 
one the conductor of the train, W. A. Fuller, and the 
other a foreman of the Atlanta railway machine shops, 
called Anthony Murphy. They found a hand-car and 
pushed forward on it till they reached Etowah, where 
they realized that the line had been cut by pitching 
headforemost down the embankment into a ditch. 
A little thing like this did not dismay them, and at 
Etowah they found the " Yonah," the iron company's 
old locomotive which, as we know, was standing with 
steam up. They got on board, filled it up with soldiers 
who happened to be near, and started off at full speed 
for Kingston, where they were convinced they would 
catch the filibusters. The " Yonah " actually entered 
Kingston station four minutes after Andrews had 
started, and was qf course immediately confronted 
with the three long trains facing the wrong way. It 
would have taken too long to move them, so the 
" Yonah " was abandoned, and Murphy uncoupled the 
engine and one coach of the Rome train, and continued 
the chase. It was now any one's race. Andrews and 
his merry men were only a few minutes ahead. 



50 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Four miles north from Kingston the little party 
again stopped and cut the wires. They started to take 
up a rail and were pulling at the loosened end when 
to their consternation they heard behind them the 
whistle of an engine. They managed to break the rail 
and then clambered in and moved on. At the next 
station, Adairsville, they found a mixed goods and 
passenger train waiting, and learned that there was an 
express on the road. It was a crazy risk to take, but 
they dared not delay, so they started at a terrific 
speed for the next station, Calhoun, hoping to reach 
it before the express, which was late, could arrive. 

They did the nine miles to Calhoun in less than nine 
minutes, and saw in front of them the express just 
starting. Hearing their whistle it backed, and enabled 
them to take a side track, but it stopped in such a 
manner as to close the other end of the switch. There 
stood the two trains side by side almost touching each 
other. Naturally questions were asked, and Andrews 
was hard put to it to explain. He told the powder 
story, and demanded in the name of General Beaure- 
gard that the other train should at once let him pass. 
With some difficulty its conductor was persuaded, and 
moved forward. 

They were saved by the broken rail. The pursuit) 



THE RAILWAY RAID IN GEORGIA 51 

saw it in time and reversed their engine. Leaving 
the soldiers behind, Puller and Murphy ran along the 
track till they met the train which Andrews had 
passed at Adairsville. They made it back in pursuit, 
and at Adairsville dropped the coaches and continued 
with only the locomotive and tender, both loaded 
with a further complement of armed soldiers. They 
thought that their quarry was safe at Calhoun, but 
they reached that place a minute or two after Andrews 
had moved out. 

Everything now depended on whether the band of 
twenty could make another gap in the track in time, 
for if they could the road was clear before them to 
Chattanooga. A few minutes ahead of them was the 
Oostenaula bridge, and if that could be burned they 
would soon be safe in Mtchel's camp. 

But the mischief was that they had no proper tools, 
and the taking up of the rails was terribly slow. Once 
again they heard the whistle of a locomotive behind 
them and saw their pursuer with armed men aboard. 
Another minute would have removed the rail, and their 
victory would have been assured ; but they could do 
nothing more than bend it, and were compelled to 
hurry back to their engine. 

Now began one of the most astounding hunts on 



52 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

record. At all costs Andrews must gain a little time 
so as to set fire to the Oostenaula bridge; so he dropped 
first one car and then another. The pursuing engine, 
however, simply picked them up and pushed them 
ahead of it. There was no time to do anything at the 
bridge. Over its high trestles they tore, with Fuller 
and his soldiers almost within rifle shot. 

Soon it appeared that there was no difference in 
the pace of the two engines. The Confederates could 
not overtake the filibusters, and Fuller's policy was 
therefore to keep close behind so as to prevent Andrews 
damaging the track and taking on -tfood and water. 
Both engines were driven to their last decimal of power, 
and Andrews succeeded in keeping his distance. But 
he was constantly delayed, for he was obliged to cut 
the telegraph wires after every station he passed, in 
order that an alarm might not be sent ahead ; and he 
could not stop long enough to tear up rails. 

All that man could do in the way of obstruction 
he did, for at all costs he must gain enough ground 
to destroy the Chickamauga bridges. He broke off 
the end of their last goods van and dropped it and 
various sleepers behind him, and this sufficiently 
checked the pursuit to enable him on two occasions 
to take in wood and water. More than once his party 



THE RAILWAY RAID IN GEORGIA 53 

almost succeeded in lifting a rail, but each lime Fuller 
got within rifle range before the work was completed. 
Through it all it rained, a steady even-down deluge. 
The day before had been clear, with a high wind, and a 
fire would have been quick to start, but on that Satur- 
day, to burn a bridge would take time and much fuel. 
On went the chase, mile after mile, past little for- 
gotten stations and quiet villages, round perilous 
curves, and over culverts and embankments which 
had never before known such speed. Hope revived 
whenever the enemy was lost sight of behind a curve, 
but whenever the line straightened the smoke ap- 
peared again in the distance, and on their ears fell 
the ominous scream of his whistle. To the men, 
strung to a desperate tension, every minute seemed 
an hour. If the Northerners' courage was superb, 
so also was the pursuit's. Several times Puller only 
escaped wreck by a hairbreadth. At one point a 
rail placed across the track at a curve was not seen 
until the train was upon it, when, said Fuller, " the 
engine seemed to bounce altogether off the track> 
and to alight again on the rails by a miracle." A 
few of the soldiers lost their nerve and would have 
given up the chase, but the stubborn resolution of 
thek leader constrained them. 



54 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Some of Andrews' party now proposed that they 
should turn and ambush the enemy, getting into close 
quarters so that their revolvers would be a match for 
Ms guns. This plan would probably have succeeded, 
but Andrews still hoped to gain sufficient ground to 
achieve his main purpose ; and he feared, too, that the 
country ahead might have been warned by a telegram 
sent round to Chattanooga by way of Richmond. 
He thought his only chance was to stake everything 
on speed. Close to the town of Dalton he stopped again 
to cut wires and confuse the track. A Confederate 
regiment was encamped a hundred yards away, but, 
assuming that the train was part of the normal traffic, 
the men scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it. Fuller 
had written a telegram to Chattanooga and dropped 
a man with orders to send it. Part of the telegram 
got through before the wires were cut and created a 
panic in that town. Meantime, Andrews' supply of 
fuel was getting very low, and it was clear that unless 
he could delay the pursuit long enough to take in more, 
his journey would soon come to an end. 

Beyond Dalton the adventurers made their last, 
efforts to take up a rail, but, as they had no tools except 
an iron bar, the coming of the enemy compelled them 
to desist. Beyond that was a long tunnel which they 



THE RAILWAY RAID IN GEORGIA 55 

made no attempt to damage. Andrews saw that the 
situation was getting desperate, and he played his 
last card. 

He increased speed so that he gained some con- 
siderable distance. Then the side and end boards of 
the last goods van were broken up, fuel was piled upon 
it, and fire brought from the engine. A long covered 
bridge lay a little ahead, and by the time they reached 
it the van was fairly on fire. It was uncoupled in the 
middle of the bridge, and they awaited the issue. If 
this device was successful there was sufficient steam in 
their boiler to carry them to the nest woodyard. 

But the device did not succeed. Before the bridge 
had caught fire Puller was upon them. He dashed 
right through the smoke and drove the burning car 
before him to the next side track. 

Left with very little fuel and with no obstructions 
to drop on the track, the position of the adventurers 
was now hopeless. In a few minutes their engine 
would come to a standstill. Their only chance was 
to leave it and escape. The wisest plan would prob- 
ably have been to desert the train in a body, move 
northward through the mountains by tracks which 
could not be followed by cavalry, and where there 
were no telegraphs. But Andrews thought that they 



56 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

should separate. He ordered the men to jump from 
the engine one by one and disperse in the woods. So 
ended in failure a most gallant enterprise. 

Melancholy is the conclusion of the tale. Ignorant 
of the country and far from their friends, the fugitives 
were easily hunted down. Several were captured the 
same day, and all but two within the week. As the 
adventurers had been in civil dress inside the enemy's 
lines they were regarded as spies, court-martialed, 
and Andrews and seven others condemned and exe* 
cuted. The advance of the Northern forces prevented 
the trial of the rest, and of the remainder, eight 
succeeded in making their escape from Atlanta in 
broad daylight, and ultimately reaching the North. 
The others, who also made the attempt, were recap- 
tured and held captive till March 1863, when they were 
exchanged for Confederate prisoners. 

I know of few stories where the enterprise was at 
once so audacious and so feasible, where success turned 
upon such an infinity of delicate chances, and where 
it was missed by so slender a margin. 



m 

THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES AFTER 
WORCESTER 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES AFTER 
WORCESTER 



OK Wednesday, the third day of September 1651, 
the army which had marched from Scotland to set 
Kong Charles upon the throne was utterly defeated 
by Cromwell at Worcester. The battle began at 
one o'clock and lasted during the autumn afternoon, 
the main action being fought east of the city. Many 
of the chief Royalists, like the Duke of Hamilton, 
fell on the field. When the issue was clear, Charles, 
accompanied by the Duke of Buckingham, Lord 
Derby, Lord Shrewsbury, Lord Wilmot, and others, 
entered the city by Sidbury Gate. There an ammuni- 
tion wagon had been overturned, and this gave check 
for a moment to the pursuit. In Friars Street the 
King threw off his armour and was given a fresh 
horse, and the whole party galloped through the 
streets and out at St. Martin's Gate* Charles was 



60 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

wearing the laced coat of the Cavalier, a linen doublet, 
grey breeches, and buff gloves with blue silk bands 
and silver lace. The little party, dusty and begrimed 
with battle, galloped to the Barbon Bridge, a mile 
north of the city, where they halted for a moment 
to plan their journey. 

The nearest and most obvious refuge was Wales, 
where the country people were Royalist, and where, 
in the mountains, Cromwell's troopers might well be 
defied. But there was no chance of crossing the 
Severn in that neighbourhood, so it was decided to 
ride north into Shropshire. Colonel Careless offered 
to act as rearguard and stave off the pursuit, and 
Mr. Charles Giffard, of the ancient family of the 
Giffards of Chillington, who knew the forest country 
of the Staffordshire and Shropshire borders, under- 
took the business of guide. There was a place called 
Boscobel, an old hunting lodge among the woods, 
where Lord Derby had already been concealed a few 
weeks before, so Giffard and a servant called Francis 
Yates (who was afterwards captured by the Crom- 
wellians and executed) led the little band through the 
twilight meadows. 

They passed the town of Kidderminster on their 
left, where, at the moment, Mr. Richard Baxter, the 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 61 

Presbyterian divine, was watching from an upper 
window in the market-place the defeated Royalists 
galloping through and a small party of Cromwellian 
soldiers firing wildly at the fugitives. The main road 
was no place for the King when the bulk of the Scottish 
horse was fleeing northward by that way, so he turned 
through Stourbridge and halted two miles farther 
on at a wayside inn to drink a glass of ale and eat a 
crust of bread. After that they passed through the 
boundaries of the old Brewood Forest, and at about 
four o'clock on the morning of Thursday, 4th Sep- 
tember, arrived at the ancient" half-timbered manor 
of Whiteladies, belonging to the family of Giffard. A 
certain George Penderel was in charge as bailiff, and 
at the sight of the party he stuck his head out of the 
window and asked for news of the battle. The door 
was flung open, and the King rode his horse into 
the hall. Charles was taken into the inner parlour, 
and George's brothers, William and Richard Penderel, 
were sent for. Richard was bidden fetch his best 
clothes, which were breeches of coarse green cloth 
and a leather doublet. Charles changed into them, 
his hair was shorn, and he was now no more the 
Cavalier, but a countryman of the name of Will Jones, 
armed with a woodbill. 



62 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

It would have been fatal for the party to have 
remained together, so his companions galloped off in 
the direction of Newport, where most of them were 
taken prisoner. Lord Derby was captured and after- 
wards beheaded; Giffard also was taken, but he 
managed to escape, as did Talbot and Buckingham. 
Charles was led by Richard Penderel into a wood at the 
back of the house called Spring Coppice, where he 
had to make himself as comfortable as might be under 
the trees. 

All that day, Thursday, 4th September, it rained 
incessantly. Richard Penderel brought him food and 
blankets, and Charles, worn out with want of sleep, 
dozed till the dusk of the evening. Then Penderel 
aroused him and bade him be going. His proposal 
was to guide him south-west to Madeley, wheie there 
seemed a chance of crossing the Severn into Wales* 
jRIadeley lay only nine miles to the south-west, a 
pleasant walk among woods and meadows; but on 
that autumn night, with the rain falling in bucket- 
fuls and every field a bog, it was a dismal journey 
for a young man stiff from lying all day in the 
woods, and stayed by no better meal than eggs and 
milk. Charles was a hearty trencherman, and had 
not trained his body to put up with short com- 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 63 

mons. However, he was given some bacon and eggs 
before lie started. 

The Penderels were Catholics, and men of that faith 
were accustomed in those days to secret goings and 
desperate shifts, and, since all were half-outlawed, 
there was a freemasonry between them. Therefore 
Richard proposed to take the King to a Catholic friend 
of his, Mr. Francis Wolfe, on the Severn bank, who 
might conceal him and pass him across the river into 
Wales. That journey in the rain remained in the 
Bong's mind as a time of peculiar hardships, though 
there seems no particular difficulty in an active young 
man walking nine miles at leisure in the darkness. 
In after years Charles was a famous walker, and used 
to tire out all his courtiers both by his pace and endur- 
ance. But on this occasion he appears to have been 
footsore and unnerved. When they had gone a mile 
they had to pass a water-mill and cross a little river 
by a wooden bridge. The miller came out and asked 
them their errand ; whereupon Penderel took alarm 
and splashed through the water, followed by his King. 
After that Charles almost gave up. Lord Clarendon, 
to whom he told the story, says that " he many times 
cast himself upon the ground with a desperate and 
obstinate resolution to rest there till the morning that 



64 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

he might shift with less torment, what hazard so ever 
he ran. But his stout guide still prevailed with him 
to make a new attempt, sometimes promising that the 
way should be better and sometimes assuring him 
that he had but little farther to go." Charles was 
desperately footsore. Perhaps the country shoes of 
" Will Jones " did not fit him. 

In the small hours they arrived at Mr. Wolfe's 
house. Charles waited " under a hedge by a great 
tree " while Richard Penderel went forward to meet 
his friend. He was greeted with bad news. Every 
ford, every bridge, and every ferry on the Severn was 
guarded by the Cromwellians, who were perfectly 
aware that the King would make for Wales. Wolfe 
had " priests' holes " in his house, but he did not dare 
to hide the King there, for they had already been 
discovered by the soldiers ; so Charles was concealed 
among the hay in the barn, where he lay during the day 
of Friday the 5th. There was nothing for it but to take 
refuge at Boscobel, the hiding-place originally arranged. 
That night, after borrowing a few shillings from Wolfe, 
the King and Richard set off eastward again, guided 
for the first part of the road by Mr. Wolfe's maid. 
At Whiteladies they heard that Colonel Careless,; who 
was acting as rearguard, had safely reached the Boscobel 




Penderel took alarm and splashed through the water, 
followed by his King. 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 65 

neighbourhood, and that Lord Wilmot was at Moseley, 
in Staffordshire, nine or ten miles to the east. All the 
country was thick woodland interspersed with heaths, 
and few safer hiding-places could be found in England. 

Charles was now in better form. The Penderels had 
stripped off his stockings, washed his feet and anointed 
the blisters. His disguise was also perfected, for 
his face and hands had been dyed with juice, and 
he made gallant efforts to imitate the clumsy gait of 
a yokel. But his disguise can never have been very 
perfect. The harsh features, the curious curl of the 
lips, the saturnine dark eyes, and above all the figure 
and the speech, were not such as are commonly found 
among mid-England peasantry. 

Penderel did not dare take him into the house, so 
he took refuge in the wood, where he was presently 
joined by Colonel Careless. On the coast being 
reported clear, the King spent the night in one of 
the priests' holes in the old manor, an uncomfortable 
dormitory, which had, however, a gallery adjoining 
it, where he took walking exercise and surveyed the 
road from Tong to Brewood. Saturday the 6th was 
a fine day, and the King spent some time sitting in 
an arbour in the garden. He was presently induced 
by Colonel Careless to seek a safer retreat in an oak 



66 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

tree in the wood. A little platform was made in the 
upper branches, pillows were brought from the house, 
and there Careless and the King spent the day. The 
Royal Oak is famous in Stuart history, and this particu- 
lar tree has long since been hacked to pieces to make 
keepsakes for the faithful. But it is by no means 
certain that Charles was in particular danger during 
the day that he slept in it, or that any Roundhead 
trooper rode below the branches and " hummed a 
surly hymn." Careless had the worst part of the 
business, for the King rested his head in his lap and 
the honest soldier's arm went to sleep. " This," in 
the words of the Miraculum Basilicon, " caused such 
a stupor or numbness in the part, that he had scarcely 
strength left in it any longer to support His Majesty 
from falling off the tree, neither durst he by reason 
of the nearness of the enemy speak so loud as to awake 
him ; nevertheless, to avoid both the danger of the 
fall and surprise together, he was (though unwillingly) 
constrained to practise so much incivility as to pinch 
His Majesty, to the end he might awake him to pre- 
vent his present danger." 

When the dusk came the two descended and 
went into the manor-house. There they were met by 
the news that the enemy cordon was closing round, 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 67 

that 1,000 reward had been put upon the King's 
head. Charles, however, was in no way dismayed, 
and demanded a loin of mutton. William Penderel 
accordingly fetched one of his master's sheep, which 
Careless stabbed and cut up with his dagger. The 
King made Scotch collops of a hind-quarter, which the 
Colonel fried in a pan, and the two had a hearty meal. 
The King slept that night in the house in a " priest's 
hole," and next day resolved to join Lord Wilmot at 
Moseley. He found, however, that his feet were still 
so tender that walking was impossible, so an old mill 
horse that had carried provisions in the campaign was 
found for him. Mounted on this beast, attended by 
Careless and the Penderels, the King set out in the 
dusk of the Sunday evening. At Moseley he found 
Lord Wilmot, and since Moseley was a safer place than 
Boscobel the King spent a peaceful night in the house. 
There, too, was a priest, Father John Huddleston, and 
not far off was Colonel Lane, both devoted Royalists. 
There he said farewell to his staunch friends, the 
Penderels. The '"King, we are told, spent the evening 
by the fire while Father Huddleston attended to his 
unfortunate feet. Charles had stuffed his stockings 
with paper, but the precaution had not saved him 
from further galls and sores. He was given new 



68 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

worsted stockings and clean linen and slippers, and 
was so much cheered thereby that he declared he was 
now fit for a new march, and that " if it should ever 
please God to bless him with ten or twelve thousand 
loyal and, resolute men he doubted not to drive these 
traitors out of his kingdom." 

We have this description of Charles on his arrival 
at Moseley : " He had on his head a long white 
steeple-crowned hat, without any other lining than 
grease, both sides of the brim so doubled with handling 
that they looked like two spouts ; a leather doublet 
full of holes, and half black with grease above the 
sleeves, collar, and waist ; an old green woodreve's 
coat, threadbare and patched in most places, with a 
pair of breeches of the same cloth and in the same 
condition, the flaps hanging down loose to the middle 
of his legs ; hose and shoes of different parishes ; the 
hose were grey, much darned and clouted, especially 
about the knees, under which he had a pair of flannel 
riding-stockings of his own with the tops cut off. His 
shoes had been cobbled with leather patches both on 
the soles and the seams, and the upper-leathers so 
cut and slashed, to adapt them to his feet, that they 
could no longer defend him either from water or dirt. 
This exotic and deformed dress, added to his short 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 69 

hair by the ears, his face coloured brown with walnut 
leaves, and a rough crooked thorn stick in his hand, 
had so metamorphosed him, he became scarcely dis- 
cernible who he was, even to those that had been 
before acquainted with his person.' 5 

Next day, Monday, the 8th, it was given out that 
Father Huddleston had a Cavalier friend lying privately 
in the house, and all the servants were sent away on 
errands except the cook, who was a Catholic. Watch 
was kept at the different windows in case of any 
roving party of soldiers. The King spent the day 
largely in sleeping and discussing the future, while 
messages were sent to loyal neighbouring squires to 
find out the lie of the land. He saw a sad sight from 
the windows many starving Royalist soldiers limping 
past the door, munching cabbage stalks and corn 
plucked from the fields. However, he heard one 
piece of news of some importance. Colonel Lane, 
who lived five miles off at Bentley, had a sister, Mss 
Jane, who had procured a pass from the Governor of 
Stafford for herself and her servant to go to Bristol, 
and it was thought that if the King passed as her 
servant he might thereby get clear of the country. 
It was accordingly arranged that on the Tuesday 
night Lord Wilmot's horses should fetch the King 



70 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

to Bentley as the first stage of Ms journey to the 
Bristol Channel. 

On the Tuesday afternoon, however, the plan all 
but miscarried. A party of soldiers arrived to search 
Moseley, and the King was hurriedly hustled into one 
of the " priests' holes." The place is still pointed out 
a stuffy little nook behind the panelling, through 
which liquid food used to be conveyed to the unfor- 
tunate occupant by means of a quill through a chink 
in the beams. The soldiers made a great row, and 
questioned the owner, Mr. Whitgreave, with a musket 
cocked at his breast, but in the end departed. When 
dusk fell Colonel Lane's horses arrived, and Charles 
set out and arrived safely at Bentley. There Colonel 
Lane gave him, in place of Will Jones's unspeakable 
clothes, a good suit and cloak of country grey, like a 
farmer's son, and put 20 in his pocket for the expenses 
of the journey. 

n 

The Kong is now no longer an aimless wanderer among 
the Staffordshire woods. A plan of campaign has been 
evolved, and the fugitive in a reasonable disguise is 
making for the sea. He arrived at Bentley about 
midnight on 9th September. The party that set out 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 71 

on the 10th. consisted of Miss Jane Lane, her cousin, 
Mrs. Petre, Mr. Petre, that cousin's husband, and a 
certain Cornet Henry Lassels, also a kinsman. The 
Petres were bound for their house at Horton, in Buck- 
inghamshire, and proposed to go only as far as Strat- 
ford-on-Avon. Charles rode in front as Miss Jane's 
servant. The route lay by Bromsgrove and Stratford- 
on-Avon, then through Cotswold to Cirencester, and 
thence to Bristol. 

It was a bold enterprise, for the natural route of 
flight after Worcester would be down the Severn 
valley to the sea. Cromwell's troopers were in every 
parish, and a large part of the population, knowing 
of the King's escape . and the reward for his capture, 
were on the watch for any suspicious stranger. The 
first stop was at the village of Bromsgrove, where the 
King's horse cast a shoe. In the smithy Charles, in 
his character of servant, asked the smith the news. 
" Precious little," was the answer, " except that 
Cromwell has routed the Scots. He has slain or 
captured most of them, but I hear the King has made 
his escape." "Perhaps," said Charles, "the King 
has gone by by-ways back into Scotland." " No," 
said the smith, " there is not much luck for him that 
way. He is lurking secretly somewhere in these 



72 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

parts, and I wish I knew where lie were, for then I 
would be the richer by a thousand pounds.' 5 

Nothing more happened till they came near Strat- 
ford, riding as far as they could by secluded by-ways. 
Their plan was to ford the Avon about a mile below 
the town ; but when they drew near the river they 
observed soldiers' horses feeding in the meadows 
and many troopers lying upon the ground. This sight 
made them turn to their left so as to enter Stratford 
another way. But at the bridge there they ran full 
into the same troop of soldiers. The troop opened 
right and left to let them pass, and returned the civil 
salute which the little party gave them. 

They were now among the foothills of Cotswold, 
and before evening reached the straggling village of 
Long Marston, a place famous for its morrice dancing. 
In the village there was a certain Mr. John Tomes, 
and in his house the travellers found lodging. The 
King, passing as a servant, found his way to the 
kitchen, where, like an earlier monarch of England, 
he was scolded by the cook because he had no notion 
how to wind up a roasting jack. The said jack is 
still in existence, and is to be seen in the village. 
Meantime Lord Wilmot and Colonel Lane were follow- 
ing behind, and the latter turned off towards London, 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CEARLES 73 

in order to arrange the final details of a pass for " Will 
Jackson," which was the name the King had now 
adopted. 

On Thursday morning, llth September, the travellers 
began the ascent into the Cotswold moors. In that 
empty country of sheep-walks there was less risk of 
detection, and accordingly good speed was made by 
Stow-on-the-Wold and along the old Roman Fosse 
Way to Northleach and so to Cirencester, where they 
arrived in the evening, after a ride of thirty-six miles. 
Near the market-place stood the " Crown Inn," an 
inconspicuous hostelry, and the travellers, professing 
great fatigue, went immediately to bed. In one 
chamber a good bed was prepared for Mr. Lassels and 
a truckle bed for Will Jackson ; but as soon as the 
door was closed the King went to sleep in the good 
bed and the Cornet on the pallet. 

Next day, Friday, 12th September, the party rode 
twenty-two miles south-west to Chipping Sodbury, 
probably escorted for part of the way by Captain 
Matthew Huntley, an old soldier of Prince Rupert's, 
who lived in those parts. They entered the city of 
Bristol by Lawford's Gate, rode through the streets, 
crossed the Avon by a ferry, and kept the left bank 
of the river to the village of Abbots Leigh, three miles 



74 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

west of Bristol. Abbots Leigh, which stands high 
up on the Downs, was an old Elizabethan house be- 
longing to the family of Norton. There the King 
was in safe quarters. Miss Jane ordered a bed to be 
made for him in a private room, and gave out that 
he was the son of one of her father's tenants and was 
sick of an ague. A neighbouring Royalist country 
gentleman, Dr. Gorge, was called in to prescribe. 
Seeing that the party had come from the north, 
Gorge asked the King for news of the battle. When 
Charles faltered in his answer the doctor accused him 
of being a Roundhead. The King denied the charge, 
and was there and then compelled to prove his politics 
by drinking a glass of wine to his own health. 

For four days Charles pretended to be sick and sat 
in the chimney corner, while Miss Jane complained 
to heaven of the feebleness of her servant. " That 
wretched boy will never be good for anything again," 
she told all and sundry. One day the King, while 
eating his bread and cheese in the buttery, fell 
into talk with a man who had been at Worcester, 
and asked him if he had ever seen the King. 
" Twenty times," was the answer. " What kind of a 
fellow is he ? " The man looked at Charles stead- 
fastly. " He is," he said, " four fingers' breadth taller 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 75 

than you." At that moment Mrs. Norton passed 
and Charles took off his hat to her. The butler, who 
had never seen him uncovered, saw something in his 
face which he remembered. He took occasion a 
little later, when they were alone, to ask if he were 
not the King. Charles confessed that he was, and the 
butler one John Pope, who had been once a falconer 
of Sir Thomas Jermyn, and afterwards a Eoyalist 
soldier swore secrecy and fealty. Another person 
was now in the plot, and Pope was used as a messenger 
to Bristol to find out what ships were sailing. But 
the news was bad. No vessel could be obtained there, 
and since it was clear that the King could not stay 
on at Abbots Leigh, it was resolved to seek the hospi- 
tality of Colonel Francis Wyndham, who lived at 
Trent on the Dorsetshire borders. The aim was to 
reach the south coast, where a smack might be hired 
to carry him into France. 

Lord Wilmot, who had arrived at Abbots Leigh 
soon after the King, was sent off to Trent to inquire 
whether the Wyndhams would hide His Majesty. He 
brought back a reply that Wyndham " thought himself 
extremely happy that amongst so many noble and 
loyal subjects he should be reckoned chiefly worthy 
of that honour, and that he was ready not only to 



76 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

venture Ms life, f amily, and estate, but even to sacrifice 
all to His Majesty's service." There was some diffi- 
culty about the departure of Miss Jane. The lady 
at Abbots Leigh had just had a child and implored 
her friend not to leave her. An imaginary letter was 
accordingly fabricated, purporting to be from Miss 
Jane's father, demanding her immediate return on the 
ground of his sudden and dangerous illness. 

On the 16th Miss Jane, Lassels, and Charles set 
out for Dorsetshire, going first towards Bristol as if 
they were returning to Bentley. Presently they 
turned the horses' heads south towards Castle Gary, 
where they were to sleep the night. The manor 
there was occupied by Lord Hertford's steward, one 
Edward Kirton, who had been advised by Lord Wilmot 
to look out for the travellers. Next day a ride of ten 
miles brought the party to Trent, where Colonel Francis 
Wyndham and his wife, Lady Anne, were waiting to 
receive them. The Wyndhams, as if taking an evening 
walk, met their guests before the house was reached. 
Miss Jane and Lassels were publicly received as 
relations, but Charles was brought secretly into the 
old house. 

Next morning the King parted with Miss Jane, 
who had been the Flora Macdonald of his Odyssey. 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 77 

She lived thirty-eight years after that eventful journey, 
marrying Sir Clement Fisher of Packington, a Warwick- 
shire squire. She became a famous toast to Royalists, 
and the many portraits extant reveal a lady of pleasing 
aspect, with a certain resolution and vigour in her air. 
The King gave her many gifts, the House of Lords 
presented her with jewels, and she and all her relations 
had royal pensions. Her brother, Colonel Lane, was 
offered but declined a peerage. The family were 
granted an augmentation to their coat of arms, and 
the motto " Garde le Roi " to commemorate their 
achievement. 

Trent was a good hiding-place and within reasonable 
distance of the coast, so that negotiations could be 
entered upon for a vessel to carry His Majesty to 
France. There Charles stayed several days, livimg 
in a set of four rooms, which are still unaltered. One 
day the bells of the neighbouring church rang out a 
peal, and the Bang sent to inquire the reason for the 
rejoicing. He was told that one of Cromwell's troopers 
was in the village, who announced that he had killed 
Charles, and was even then wearing his buff-coat, and 
that the villagers, being mostly Puritans, were cele- 
brating the joyful news. 

Meanwhile Colonel Wyndham was hunting high and 



78 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

low for a ship. He consulted his neighbour, Colonel 
Strangways of Melbury, the ancestor of the Ilchester 
family; and a certain William Ellesdon, a merchant 
of Lyme Regis, was named as a likely person to procure 
a vessel, since he had already assisted Lord Berkeley 
to escape. Ellesdon suggested a tenant of his, one 
Stephen Limbry of Charmouth, the master of a coasting 
vessel, and for 60 the latter agreed to carry Lord 
Wilmot and his servant to France. Limbry was to 
have his long boat ready at Charmouth on the night 
of the 22nd. 

The next thing was to get rooms at Charmouth for 
that night, and Wyndham's servant was sent to an 
inn " The Queen's Arms " in that place, with a 
tale of how he served a worthy nobleman who was 
deep in love with an orphan maid and was resolved 
to steal her by night. The romantic hostess believed 
the story, and agreed to give them rooms and keep her 
tongue quiet. Accordingly Charles set out on the 
morning of 22nd September from Trent, riding pillion 
with a certain Miss Juliana Comngsby, Colonel Wynd- 
ham's pretty cousin, who was to play the part of the 
runaway heroine. Colonel Wyndham went as a guide, 
and Lord Wilmot and his servant followed behind. On 
the way to Charmouth they met Ellesdon, who learned 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 79 

for the first time that the King was the fugitive. 
Charles made the merchant a present of a gold coin 
in which he had bored a hole to wile away the dreary 
hours of his hiding at Trent. In the afternoon the 
little party rode down the steep hill into Charmouth, 
arriving at the inn of the romantic landlady, while 
Ellesdon went to hunt up Limbry, the seaman. 

It was an anxious moment, for, as luck would have it, 
it was market day at Lyme and the inn was crowded. 
Lord Wilmot and Miss Coningsby had to live up to 
the part of runaway lovers a part in which Charles 
would probably have shown more zeal than discretion. 

Midnight came, but there was no sign of Limbry. 
Wyndham and his servant were out all night on the 
quest, but at dawn they returned to report failure. 
The first idea was that the man must have got drunk 
at the market ; but later the true story came out. 
Limbry had gone home to get clean clothes for the 
voyage. But that day a proclamation had been made 
in the town declaring it death for any person to aid 
or conceal the King, and promising 1,000 reward for 
his apprehension. His wife, knowing her husband's 
practices in the past, accordingly locked him in his 
room, and when he would have broken out raised 
racket enough to alarm the neighbourhood. The 



80 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

prudent man made a virtue of necessity and sub- 
mitted. 

Here was a pretty kettle of fish. Charles could not 
stay at Charmouth, and it was arranged that he and 
Mss Coningsby and Wyndham should ride on to 
Bridport, while Lord Wilmot and his servant should 
remain behind for an explanation with Ellesdon. A 
rendezvous was to be made at the "George Inn" at 
Bridport. Off went the King, while Lord Wilmot's 
horse went to the smithy to be shod. The smith, who 
was a stout Cromwellian, began to ask questions. 
Whence came these nails if the gentlemen had ridden 
from Exeter, for these nails were assuredly put in 
in the North ? The ostler in charge of the horse added 
that the saddles had not been taken off in the night 
time, and that the gentlemen, though travellers, sat 
up all night. Clearly they were people of quality 
fleeing from the Worcester fight, and probably the 
King was among them. The ostler saw a chance of 
making his fortune, and marched off to the parsonage 
to consult the parson, one Wesley, the great-grandfather 
of the famous John. It is interesting to note that 
just as Lord Macaulay's great-grandfather did his best 
to prevent Prince Charlie's escape, so John Wesley's 
great-grandfather came athwart that of King Charles. 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 81 

But Mr. Wesley was busy at his morning devotions 
and would not move till they were ended. On hearing 
the tale he accompanied the ostler to the inn, where, 
being apparently a humorist, he thus accosted the 
landlady : " Charles Stuart lay last night at your 
house and kissed you at his departure, so that now 
you can't but be a maid of honour." " If I thought 
it was the King, as you say it was," was the answer, 
" I would think the better of my lips all th.e days 
of my life. Out of my house, Mr. Parson." So Mr. 
Parson went to the nearest commanding officer and 
got a troop of horse together, who followed what they 
believed to be the track of the fugitives along the 
London road. 

Meantime Charles had arrived at Bridport. The 
town was packed with soldiers who had mustered there 
for an expedition against the Isle of Jersey. It was no 
easy matter to get lodgings at the " George " ; but there 
he must go, for it was the rendezvous appointed with 
Lord Wilmot. A private room was found with some 
difficulty, while the King attended to the horses in 
the yard. There he met a drunken ostler who claimed 
to have known him in Exeter ; the King played up to 
this part and the two made merry together. A hurried 
dinner was eaten, for there was no time to linger, and 



82 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

us soon as Lord Wilmot had joined them they pushed 
on along the London road. A quarter of an hour after 
they left the " George" the local authorities arrived 
to search it (the news of the Royalists' presence having 
come from Charmouth), and more soldiers started in 
pursuit. Luckily the King's party resolved to go back 
to Trent, and had just turned off the high road when 
they saw the pursuit dash past in the direction of 
Dorchester. 

After that the travellers seem to have lost their 
way, but in the evening they found themselves in 
the village of Broad Windsor, close to Trent. In 
the inn there Colonel Wyndham recognized in the 
landlord a former servant and a staunch Royalist, 
and there they slept the night. It was a narrow 
lodging and much congested with forty soldiers, who 
were marching to the south coast on the Jersey 
expedition. No untoward event, however, happened, 
and next morning the King got back to his old quarters 
in Trent, There he lay secure while his pursuers were 
laying hands upon every handsome young lady for 
forty miles round, under the belief that it was their 
monarch in disguise. The honest folk of Charmouth 
and Bridport seem to have seen the 'Bang in Miss 
Juliana Coningsby, and, indeed, this belief in Charles's 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 83 

female disguise was almost universal. There was 
another rumour in London that, wearing a red peri- 
wig, he had actually got a post as servant to an officer 
of Cromwell's army ; and still another, published on 
29th September, that he was safe in Scotland with 
Lord Balcarres. 

m 

The problem of escape had now become exceedingly 
difficult. It was impossible to stay on the coast, 
which was strictly watched, and was, moreover, all in 
a bustle with the Jersey expedition. But the coast 
was the only hope, and therefore it must be again 
visited. The only chance was to make a cast inland 
and try for the shore at another point. While at 
Trent Colonel Wyndham's brother-in-law, Mr. Edward 
Hyde, came to dine, and mentioned that on the previous 
day at Salisbury he had seen Colonel Robert Phelips 
of Montacute, who could probably get them a vessel 
in one of the southern ports. Lord Wilmot was 
accordingly sent off next morning to Salisbury to find 
Colonel Phelips and devise a plan. 

Phelips willingly undertook the service and went 
off to Southampton to look for a ship. He thought 
he had found one ; but it turned out that the bark was 



84 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

pressed to carry provisions to Admiral Blake's fleet, 
then lying before Jersey. He returned to Salisbury, 
and decided to get the assistance of a certain Colonel 
Gounter who lived near Chichester. It was agreed 
that Charles should be brought to Heale House, near 
Salisbury, the residence of a widow, a Mrs. Hyde, and 
there, on Monday, 6th October, accompanied by Miss 
Juliana Coningsby, the King duly arrived from Trent. 
At Heale Miss Juliana left him, having faithfully played 
her romantic part. To dinner came Dr. Hinchman, 
afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and next day the 
King behaved like an ordinary tourist, riding out 
to see the sights, especially Stonehenge. Meanwhile 
Lord Wilmot was scouring the country for a man who 
would hire him a boat, and he and Colonel Gounter 
thought their likeliest chance was with a certain 
Captain Nicholas Tattersal, the master of a small coal 
brig, the Surprise, at Brighton. Tattersal, however, 
had just started for Chichester ; but a message reached 
him at Shoreham, and on Saturday, llth October, 
there was a meeting, when, for 60, the captain agreed 
to carry over to France Colonel Gounter's two friends, 
who were said to be anxious to leave the country' 
because of their part in a fatal duel. 
It was now necessary to get the King from Heale 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 85 

to the Sussex coast. At two o'clock on the Monday 
morning Charles rode out of Heale by the back way 
with Colonel Phelips, and took the road for Hampshire. 
After they had covered about fifteen miles they were 
joined by Colonel Gounter and Lord Wilmot, who, 
by previous arrangement, had been coursing hares 
on the Downs. They spent the night in a house at 
Hambledon among the pleasant "hills of the Forest 
of Bere, where they parted with Phelips. Colonel 
Gounter was now in charge, and on Tuesday, the 14th, 
their way lay through the county of Sussex. Charles's 
disguise must have been fairly complete, for he seems 
usually to have been taken for a Parliamentarian, 
since William Penderel's scissors had left him with 
very little hair. He took pains to keep up the char- 
acter, for when an inn-keeper used an oath, he flung 
up his hands and drawled, " Oh, dear brother, that 
is a c scape.' Swear not, I beseech thee." He was 
clad in a short coat and breeches of sad-coloured 
cloth, with a black hat, and according to one narrative 
cut a figure like " the minor sort of country gentle- 
man." 

This last day's ride was in many ways the most 
hazardous of all. As they neared Arundel Castle they 
suddenly encountered the Governor setting out to 



86 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

hunt with some of his men. Crossing the Arun at 
Houghton Bridge, they had beer at a poor atehouse 
and lunched off two neat's tongues, which Colonel 
Gounter had brought with Mm. Then they passed 
through the pretty village of Bramber, which, as it 
happened, was full of Cromwellian soldiers who had 
stopped for refreshment. When they had left the 
village behind them they heard a clattering at their 
back and saw the whole troop riding as if in pursuit. 
The soldiers, however, galloped past them without 
stopping, and at the next village, Beeding, where 
Colonel Gounter had arranged a meal for the King, 
they did not dare to halt for fear of the same soldiers. 
Nine miles more over the Downs and they reached the 
obscure little fishing village of Brighthelmstone, which 
was all that then existed of Brighton, and halted at 
the " George Inn," where they ordered supper. 

The place was happily empty, and there Lord Wilmot 
joined them. That last meal was a merry one, and 
Charles was especially cheerful, for he saw his long 
suspense approaching its end. He had borne the 
strain with admirable fortitude and good-humour, 
and whatever may be said of Ms qualities as a king 
on the throne, he was certainly an excellent king of 
adventure. The landlord, one Smith, who had formerly 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 87 

been in the Royal Guards, waited on the table at 
supper and apparently recognized His Majesty, for he 
kissed his hand and said, " It shall not be said that I 
have not kissed the best man's hand in England. 
God bless you ! I do not doubt but, before I die, to be 
a lord and my wife a lady." Tattersal, the shipmaster, 
also joined them, and they sat drinking and smoking 
until 10 p.m., when it was time to start. 

Horses were brought by the back way to the beach, 
and the party rode along the coast to Shoreham Creek. 
There lay the coal brig, the Surprise, and Charles and 
Lord Wilmot got into her by way of her ladder and lay 
down in the little cabin till the tide turned, after 
bidding adieu to Colonel Gounter; The honest Colonel 
waited upon the shore with the horses for some hours, 
lest some accident should drive the party ashore 
again. 

It was between seven and eight o'clock in the 
morning of Wednesday, 15th October, before the boat 
sailed, making apparently for the Isle of Wight, the 
captain having given out that he was bound for Poole 
with a cargo of sea coal. At five o'clock that evening 
they changed direction, and with a favourable north 
wind set out for the French coast. The King amused 
himself on deck by directing the course, for he knew 



88 ESCAPES AOT) HURRIED JOURNEYS 

something of navigation. Next morning the coast of 
France was sighted, but a change in the wind and 
the falling tide compelled them to anchor two miles 
off Fecamp. Charles and Wilmot rowed ashore in 
the cock-boat. Thereafter the wind turned again, 
and enabled Tattersal to proceed to Poole without 
any one being aware that he had paid a visit to 
France. 

After the Restoration the little coal boat was 
ornamented and enlarged and moored in the Thames 
at Whitehall as a show for Londoners. She now bore 
the name of the Royal Escape, and was entered as a 
fifth-rater in the Royal Navy. 

Wilmot, the loyal and resourceful companion, did 
not live to see the Restoration, for he died in the autumn 
of 1657, after he had been created Earl of Rochester. 
Nine years after the events recorded in this tale, on 
the 25th May, in bright weather, Charles landed at 
Dover at the summons of his countrymen, as the 
restored King of England. He was met by the Mayor 
and presented with a Bible, which, he observed, was 
the thing he most valued in the world. So began a 
reign which was scarcely worthy of its spirited prelude. 
In one matter, indeed, the King was beyond criticism. 
No one of the people, gentle or simple, who had assisted 



THE ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES 89 

him in that wild flight from Worcester died unrewarded. 
Until the end of his days Charles cherished tenderly 
the memory of the weeks when he had been an outlaw 
with a price on his head, and king, like Robin Hood, 
only of the greenwood. 



IV 

FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 



ON November 15, 1899, lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer 
Haldane, who in the Great War commanded the VI. 
Corps, was thirty-seven years of age and> captain 
in the Gordon Highlanders. Mr. Winston Churchill, 
who was afterwards to hold most offices in the British 
Cabinet, was then twenty-five, and was acting as corre- 
spondent for the Morning Post on the Natal front. He 
had already seen service with his regiment, the 4th 
Hussars, on the Indian frontier, and in other capacities 
in Cuba and on the Nile. The South African War had 
just begun, and so far had gone badly for Britain. Sir 
George White was cut off in Ladysmith ; but Sir 
Redvers Buller had landed in Natal, and it was believed 
that he would soon advance to an easy victory. 

The South African War, as we all know, was entered 
upon light-heartedly and with very scanty fore-know- 
ledge of the problems to be faced. Much of the British 



94 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

equipment was amateurish ; but the palm for amateur* 
ishness must be given to the armoured train which 
plied its trade in the neighbourhood of Estcourt. It 
was not much better than a death-trap. It was made 
up of an engine, five wagons, and an ancient 7-pounder 
muzzle-loading gun. Its purpose was reconnaissance ; 
but it was a very noisy and conspicuous scout, as it 
wheezed up and down the line, belching clouds of 
smoke and steam. 

On the morning of 15th November it set out to 
reconnoitre towards Chieveley, carrying on board 
120 men, made up of a small civilian break-down gang, 
part of a company of the Dublin Fusiliers, and a com- 
pany of the Durban Light Infantry Volunteers. Captain 
Haldane was in command, and Mr. Churchill, in his 
capacity as a War Correspondent, went with him. 
When they reached Chieveley, Boer horsemen were 
observed, and the train was ordered back to Frere. 
But before it reached Frere it was discovered that a 
hill commanding the whole line at a distance of 600 
yards was occupied by the enemy. 

The driver put on full steam and tried to run the 
gauntlet ; but a big stone had been placed on the 
line at the foot of a steep gradient, and into this the 
train crashed. The engine, which was in the centre 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 95 

of the train, was not derailed, and a gallant attempt 
was made to clear the wreckage of the foremost trucks 
and push through. For more than an hour, under 
heavy shell-fire from the enemy's field guns, and a 
constant hail of rifle bullets, the crew of the train 
laboured to clear the obstruction. But the couplings 
of the trucks broke, and though the engine, laden 
with wounded, managed to continue its journey, 
the position of the rest of the crew was hopeless, and 
they were compelled to surrender. The Boers behaved 
with conspicuous humanity, and the little company 
of prisoners were soon jogging slowly northward 
towards Pretoria. 

The capital of the then South African Republic was 
a little new town planned in orderly parallelograms 
lying in a cup among rocky hills. From it three rail- 
ways radiated one to Pietersburg and the north, one 
to Johannesburg in the south-west, and one running 
eastward to Portuguese territory and the sea at Dela- 
goa Bay. The British privates and non-commis- 
sioned officers were sent to a camp at the racecourse 
on the outskirts of the town, while the officers were 
taken to the Staats Model School, a building almost 
in the centre of Pretoria. At first Mr. Churchill was 
sent with the men, but he was presently brought back 



96 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

and added to the officers. He bore a name which 
was better known than liked in the Transvaal at the 
time, and his presence as a prisoner was a considerable 
Batisf action to his captors. 

The Staats Model School was a single-storied red 
brick building with a slated veranda, and consisted of 
twelve class-rooms, a large lecture hall, and a gym- 
nasium. The playground, in which it stood, was about 
120 yards square, and in it there were tents for the 
guards, the cookhouse, and a bathing-shed. On two 
sides it was surrounded by an iron grill, and on the 
other two by a corrugated iron fence some 10 feet high. 
Before the prisoners from the armoured train arrived 
there were already sixty British officers there, captured 
in the early Natal fighting. For guard there were 
twenty-seven men and three corporals of the South 
African Republic Police (known locally as " Zarps "). 
These furnished nine sentries in reliefs of four hours ; 
they stood 50 yards apart, well armed with revolvers 
and rifles. In every street ; of Pretoria, too, were 
posted special armed constables. 

To be taken prisoner thus early, in what was believed 
to "be a triumphant war, was a bitter pill for British 
officers to -swallow, and it was not easier for the rest- 
less, energetic spirit of Mr. Churchill. As soon ^s the 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 97 

captives arrived they began to make plans for escape. 
None of them were on parole, and at first sight it 
looked a comparatively easy task. It would not be 
hard to scale the flimsy outer defences of the Staats 
Model School, but the trouble lay in the guards. It 
was f ound impossible to bribe them, for, as Mr. Churchill 
has observed in his book, the presence of so many 
millionaires in the country had raised the tariff too 
high for any ordinary purse. Another difficulty was 
where to go to. It was no good attempting to reach 
Natal or Cape Colony, for that meant going through 
Boer armies. The best chance lay eastward in the 
direction of Portuguese territory, but that involved 
a journey of 300 miles through an unknown country. 
The one hope was the Delagoa Bay line, for where 
there is a railway there are always chances of transport 
for a bold man. 

Captain Haldane's mind turned to tunnelling, and 
he discovered in an old cupboard several screwdrivers 
and wire-cutters, which he managed to secrete, Mr. 
Churchill had a more audacious plan. He had ob- 
served that the sentries on the side of the quadrangle 
remote from the road were at certain times, as they 
walked on their beats, unable to see the top of a few 
yards of the boundary wall. There were brilliant 



98 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

electric lights in tlie middle of the quadrangle, but the 
sentries beyond them could not see very well what lay 
behind. If it were possible to pass the two sentries on 
that side at the exact moment when both their backs 
were turned together, the wall might be scaled and 
the garden of the villa next door reached. Beyond 
that it was impossible to plan. Mr. Churchill and a 
friend resolved to make the attempt and to trust to 
the standing luck of the British Army to get safely 
out of the town and cover the 280 miles to the Portu- 
guese border. They had a fair amount of money, 
they would carry some chocolate with them, and they 
hoped to buy mealies at the native kraals. They 
knew no Kafir or Dutch, and would have to lie hidden 
by day and move only in the darkness. 



n 

The enterprise was fixed for the night of llth Decem- 
ber, and was to be attempted at seven o'clock when 
the bell rang for dinner. The two spent a nervous 
afternoon ; but when the bell rang it was seen that 
the thing was hopeless. The sentries did not walk 
about, and one stood opposite the one climbable part 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 99 

of the wall. "With a most unsatisfactory feeling 
of relief " the two went to bed. The next evening 
came and again the dinner bell rang. Mr. Churchill 
walked across the quadrangle, and from a corner in 
one of the offices watched the sentries. After half 
an hour one suddenly turned and walked up to his 
comrade and began to talk. The chance had come. 
Mr. Churchill ran to the wall, pulled himself up, and 
lay flat on the top while the sentries with their backs 
turned were talking 15 yards away. Then he dropped 
into the shrubs of the garden. 

It was a night of full moonlight, but there was fair 
cover in the bushes. The villa to which the garden 
belonged was 20 yards off, and the undrawn curtains 
revealed brightly lighted windows with figures moving 
about. Mr. Churchill had to wait for the arrival of 
his comrade, and as he waited a man came out 
of the back door of the villa and walked in Ms 
direction across the garden. Ten yards away he 
stopped and appeared to be watching, while the fugi- 
tive remained absolutely still with a thumping heart. 
Then another man joined the first, lit a cigar, and the 
two walked off together. Then a cat was pursued 
by a dog, rushed into the bushes, and collided with 
the fugitive. The two men stopped, but, reflecting 



100 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

that it was only the cat, passed out of the garden gate 
into the town. 

Mr. Churchill had now been lying there an hour, 
when he heard a voice from inside the quadrangle 
say quite loud, "All up." He crawled back to 
the wall and heard two officers walking up and down 
talking. One of them mentioned his name. He 
coughed ; one of the officers thereupon began to chatter 
some kind of nonsense while the other said slowly, 
"He cannot 'get out. The sentry suspects. It is 
all up. Can you get back again ? " But to go back 
was impossible, and though Mr. Churchill had very 
little hope he determined to have a run for his money. 
He said loudly and clearly, so that the others heard 
him, " I shall go on alone." 

The first thing was to get out of Pretoria. He had 
managed during Ms confinement to acquire a suit of 
dark clothes, different from the ordinary garments 
issued to prisoners. To reach the road he must pass 
a sentry at short range, but he decided that the 
boldest course was the safest. He got up, walked past 
the windows of the villa, passed the sentry at less than 
50 yards, and, after walking 100 yards and hearing no 
challenge, knew that he had surmounted the second 
obstacle. 




Then another man joined the first, lit a cigar, and 
the two walked off together. 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 101 

It was 'a queer experience to be at large on a bright 
moonlight night in the heart of the enemy's capital 
nearly 300 miles from friendly territory, and with a 
certainty that in an hour or two there would be a hue 
and cry out against him. He strolled at a leisurely 
pace down the middle of the streets, humming a tuiie, 
past crowds of burghers, till he reached the environs. 
There he sat down and reflected. His escape would 
probably not be known till dawn, and he must get, 
some way off before daybreak, for all the neighbouring 
country would be patrolled. He had 75 in his pocket 
and four slabs of chocolate, but the compass, map, 
opium tablets, and meat lozenges were left behind with 
his unlucky friend. His only chance was the Delagoa 
Bay Railway. That line, of course, was guarded, 
and every traigi would be searched; but among a 
multitude of black alternatives it gave at least a ray 
of hope. 

Half a mile later he struck the railroad, but he could 
not be sure whether it was the Ketersburg or the 
Delagoa Bay line, for it appeared to run north instead 
of east. He followed it, and soon began to realize 
the exhilaration of escape. Walking in the cool night 
under the stars his spirits rose. There were pickets 
along the line and watchers at every bridge, but he 



102 ESCAPES AND HUKRIED JOURNEYS 

avoided them all by short detours. And as he walked 
he reflected that if he trusted to his feet to cover the 
300 miles he would very soon be captured. He must 
make better speed, and the only chance for that was 
a train. Yes, a train must be boarded, and at the 
earliest opportunity. 

When he had walked for two hours he perceived 
the lights of a station, so he left the track and hid in 
a ditch 200 yards beyond the buildings. He argued 
that any train would stop at the station and by the 
^time it reached him would not have got up much 
speed. After another hour he heard a train whistle 
and saw the yellow headlights of the engine. It 
waited five minutes in the station, and then, with a 
great rumbling, started again. Mr. Churchill flung 
himself on the trucks, got some sort of handhold, and 
with a great struggle seated himself on the couplings. 
It was a goods train, and the trucks were full of empty 
sacks covered with coal dust, among which he burrowed. 
He had no notion whether or not he was on the right 
line, and he was too tired to worry, so he simply fell 
asleep. He woke before daybreak and realized that he 
must leave the train ere dawn. So he sat himself 
again on the couplings, and catching hold of the iron 
handle at the back of the truck, sprang to the side. 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 103 

Tlie next moment lie was sprawling in a ditch, much 
shaken but not hurt. 

He found himself in the middle of a valley surrounded 
by low hills. Presently the dawn began to break, 
and to his relief he realized that he had taken the 
right railway. The line ran straight into the sunrise. 
He had a long drink from a pool, and resolved to select 
a hiding-place to lie up for the day. This he found 
in a patch of wood on the side of a deep ravine, where, 
in the company of a cynical vulture, he spent the day- 
light hours. From his eyrie he could see a little tin- 
roofed town in the west, through which he had passed 
in the night, and in the immediate neighbourhood 
farmsteads with clumps of trees. There was a Kafir 
kraal at the bottom of the hill, and he watched the 
natives drive the flocks of goats and cows to the pas- 
tures. His only food was one slab of chocolate, which 
produced a violent thirst ; but, as the water pool was 
half a mile away in the open and men were constantly 
passing, he dare not risk going for a drink. 

His prospects were pretty black when he started 
again at the first darkness. He had a drink from 
the pool, and then took to the railway line in hope of 
getting a second train ride. But no train came, and 
for six hours in the bright moonlight he walked on, 



104 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

avoiding the Kafirs' huts and the guarded bridges, 
When he had to make a circuit he fell into bogs, and, 
as he was in a poor condition from the previous month's 
imprisonment, he was very soon tired out. 

Mr. Churchill published the story of his escape during 
the war, when it was important not to implicate any 
friends still in the Transvaal, and so the next part 
of his journey has never been explicitly told. It 
appears that he fell in with a Mr. Burnham and a Mr. 
Howard, officials of a colliery, who gave him valuable 
assistance, as they were afterwards to assist Captain 
Haldane. On the fifth day after leaving Pretoria 
he reached Mddelburg, where it was arranged that he 
should try and board a Delagoa Bay train. 

Meantime the hue and cry was out against him. 
Telegrams describing him at great length were sent 
along every railway ; 3,000 photographs were printed, 
and warrants were issued for his immediate arrest. 
Officials of the prison who knew him by sight hurried 
off to Komati Poort, the frontier station, to examine 
travellers. It was rumoured that he had escaped 
disguised as a woman, and again disguised as a police- 
man ; and finally it was reported that he was still 
in hiding in Pretoria. The Dutch newspapers con- 
sidered it a sinister fact that just before he escaped 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 105 

he had become a subscriber to the State Library and 
had borrowed Mill's On Liberty I 

On the sixth day he found a train to Delagoa Bay 
standing in a siding, which he boarded. The journey 
should take not more than thirty-six hours, so the pro- 
visions carried were not elaborate, and he had only 
one bottle of water. He managed to ensconce himself 
in a truck laden with great sacks of some soft mer- 
chandise, and worm his way to the bottom. The 
heat was stifling, for it was midsummer in the Trans- 
vaal, and the floor of the truck was littered with coal 
dust, which did not add to its amenities. 

These last days of the adventure were both anxious 
and uncomfortable. He scarcely dared to sleep for 
fear of snoring, and he was in terror that at Komati 
Poort, the frontier station of the Transvaal, the trucks 
would be searched. His anxiety there was prolonged, 
for the train was shunted for eighteen hours on to a 
siding. Indeed, his truck was actually searched, and 
the upper tarpaulin was removed, but the police were 
careless and did not search deep enough. 

At length, two and a half days after he left Middel- 
burg, and eight and a half days from Pretoria, the 
train crawled into Delagoa Bay. Mr. Churchill emerged 
from his hole in the last stages of dirt, hunger, and 



106 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

weariness. But all troubles were now past. He 
went first to the British consul, who thought he was 
a fireman from one of the ships in the harbour, and 
who welcomed him with enthusiasm when he learned 
his real name. Clothes were bought ; he had a long 
wash, and at last a civilized meal. That very night, 
as it happened, a steamer was leaving for Durban, 
and in case any of the Boer agents at Delagoa Bay 
should attempt to recapture him, some dozen of 
the English residents, armed with revolvers, escorted 
him on board. A few days later Mr. Churchill was 
back again in Natal with the British Army. 



in 

We return to Captain Haldane and his friends, 
who had been meditating escape from the first day 
of their arrival at the Staats Model School. The 
difficulty was, of course, the guards, and Mr. Churchill's 
exploit made the Boer Government redouble its vigi- 
lance. It was found impossible to bribe the sentries ; 
a plan for a rising of the prisoners was soon given up ; 
and the scheme of sinking a shaft and then tunnelling 
to an adjacent kitchen garden proved impracticable, 
since the diggers very soon struck water. For three 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 107 

miserable months Captain Haldane cogitated in vain, 
and the best he could do was to get hold of a tourist 
map of South Africa and study the country east of 
Pretoria in case some way of escape should present 
itself. Meantime an incident cheered the prisoners. 
A man accompanied by a St. Bernard dog took to 
walking outside the school and signalling by the Morse 
code with his stick. He was warned off by the guards, 
but he found another means of communication and 
sent messages from an adjacent house giving the news 
of the war. 

In the middle of February 1900 there was a rumour 
that the officers were to be moved to a new building 
from which escape would be impossible. This gave 
Captain Haldane an idea. He resolved to go into 
hiding beneath the floor, so that the Boers should 
think he had escaped, and then, when the officers were 
moved and the building was left empty, to emerge 
and get out of the town. His companions in the 
attempt were Lieutenant Neil Le Mesurier of the 
Dublin Fusiliers and Sergeant-Major A. Brockie of 
the Imperial Light Horse. They collected a few 
necessary articles, opened the trap-door, and went to 
earth. 

It was a horrible place in which they found them- 



108 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

selves. The floor of the building was about 2 
feet above the ground, and the space below was 
divided into five narrow compartments by four stone 
walls, on which the cross beams rested. Each of 
these compartments was about 18 feet long and 3J 
feet wide, and there were manholes between them. 
The air, what there was of it, came through a small 
ventilator somewhere on the veranda. The place 
was pitch dark, and the atmosphere was stuffy to the 
last degree. 

The three thought that their imprisonment there 
would only last for twenty-four hours. They went to 
earth on 26th February, and next day there was a 
great to-do about their disappearance. Descriptions 
of them were circulated over the whole country. One 
of their friends above, Lieutenant Frankland of the 
Dublin Fusiliers, arranged a small daily supply of 
provisions. Alas 1 the twenty -four hours passed and 
there was no move above. For nineteen days the three 
men remained in that horrible dungeon. Their only 
exercise was crawling about, in which they broke their 
heads constantly against beams and walls. They were 
covered with dirt, for very little water could be passed 
through the trap-door. Still they managed to endure. 
By the light of a dip they played games of patience 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 



and talked, and their chief anxiety was lest by 
snoring or talking in their sleep they should give 
their hiding-place away. Their friends above who 
were in the secret tried to persuade them to come 
up occasionally to get some fresh air, but they were 
determined to play the game according to its rigour, 
and refused. 

But the situation was getting serious, for all three 
were falling ill. Captain Haldane wrote to a fellow- 
prisoner in the school above, a Dutch pastor called 
Adrian Hofmeyer, begging him to try and get the 
move expedited. Hofmeyer did his best with the 
authorities, telling them the story of a bogus rising 
of the prisoners ; but still nothing happened. At last 
came the good news that the move was fixed for 
Friday, 16th March. The prisoners underground heard 
the commandant going his rounds for the last time. 
Then their friends gave the agreed signal, and Frank- 
land's voice said, " Good-bye." At a quarter-past ten 
the prisoners were heard leaving the school, and by 
midday the servants and baggage had left. The three 
stayed below till nightfall and then walked out of the 
empty building. Walking is, indeed, a misnomer, for 
they seemed to nave lost the use of their legs. They 
feli repeatedly and reeled like drunken men. It was 



110 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

not till they had got out of the town that they re- 
covered the use of their limbs. 

They had 300 miles of a difficult journey to make to 
safety, and surely never in the history of escapes have 
three men started out on a wilder enterprise in worse 
physical condition. Mr. Churchill had been out of 
training, but his physique at the time was that of an 
athlete's compared to Captain Haldane and his com- 
panions. Brockie, who had lived in the country and 
knew the language, got himself up like a wounded 
Boer, with his left arm in a sling and the Boer colours 
round Ms head. The trio presented the appearance of 
the worst kind of Irish moonlighters. 

In the suburbs a special constable looked at them 
suspiciously, but was reassured by the sight of Brockie' s 
wounded arm. They struck the Delagoa Bay Railway 
and stumbled along it, Le Mesurier having the bad 
luck to sprain his ankle. Their one advantage was 
that, having been supposed to escape three weeks 
before, the immediate hue and cry after them had 
died down. 

Their first halting-place was near a station on the 
line, 13 miles east of Pretoria. There they lay 
up, suffering much from mosquitoes, and when dark- 
ness came made for the highroad running east. The 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 111 

Transvaal highways at that time were not like those 
of to-day, but simply raw red scars running across the 
veld, by no means easy to follow in the darkness. 
On this second night of their travels they were hunted 
by dogs, and Haldane and Le Mesurier took refuge in 
a stream, cowering up to their necks. Here they lost 
Brockie, but fortunately he was the one of the three 
best able to fend for himself, as he knew the country 
and could speak both Dutch and Kafir. The two, 
soaked to the skin, spent the rest of the night in a 
clump of bracken, after taking a dose of quinine and 
opium. At daybreak they found themselves stiff with 
rheumatism. They had finished their whisky, and the 
provisions, matches, and tobacco were soaked. 

At dawn, in a tremendous thunderstorm, they made 
for the railway again, and there Haldane, to his con- 
sternation, discovered that he had left Ms money and 
belt in the last hiding-place. He dared not return for 
them, even if he had had any hope of finding the place 
again. So there were the two men, without food or 
money, weary, cramped, and sick, with the better part 
of 300 miles before them in an enemy country, 

Food must be found, and that night they came on 
a Kafir kraal with a field of water melons. They 
made a meal off the melons and stumbled on again. 



112 ESCAPES AND HURKIED JOURNEYS 

The next night their physical condition began to be 
really serious. In four nights they had only covered 
36 miles, and their food was reduced to one tin of 
pemmican, one tin of cocoa, and a scrap of biltong. 
They had hoped for mealies from the fields, but the 
mealie harvest had just been gathered and not a cob 
remained. Another misfortune was the condition of 
the veld grass. They had expected it to be long 
enough to hide in, but it was far too short for shelter, 
and they were therefore compelled to lie up by day in 
wet swamps. 

That night, having finished every scrap of food, they 
blundered into a Kafir hut beside a coal siding, where 
some natives were eating mealie-meal porridge. Their 
only course was to reveal themselves, for the Kafirs 
were in the main on the British side. They learned 
that the natives' master, the manager of the coal 
mine, was a Dane, and to him they disclosed their 
identity. The manager was friendly. He said his 
own -mine was sending no coals to the coast for the 
moment, but that at a colliery next door three trucks 
were being loaded up for Delagoa Bay next morning. 
He handed his visitors over to the storekeeper of the 
mine, Mr. Moore, who gave them a dry bed and a good 
meal. 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 113 

Next morning they heard that the mine doctor, a 
Scotsman called Gillespie, was coming to see them, 
and in him they found a stout ally, for he knew all 
about their escape and had been looking for their 
arrival in order to help them. He was one of the 
people who had already assisted Mr. Churchill. That 
evening he undertook to drive them to another mine, 
where a plan of escape could be matured. 

In the early darkness they drove 14 miles over the 
veld to the colliery of the Transvaal Delagoa Bay 
Company. There they were handed over to Mr. J. E. 
Howard, who had been the chief agent in Mr, ChurchilPs 
escape. There, too, they were introduced to Mr. 
Addams, the secretary of the mine, who turned out 
to be no other than the Englishman with the St. 
Bernard dog who had been accustomed to walk past 
the Staats Model School. He and the manager of the 
mine store, Mr. Burnham, at once set about planning 
their escape. It was arranged that Mr. Howard should 
feign illness for a few days and remain indoors, and 
that Haldane and Le Mesurier should take up their 
quarters with him. To their relief they also got news 
of Brockie, for he had turned up a little earlier at the 
same place and had been given a passport to the 
border. 



114 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

The plan arranged was as follows : Wool was still 
being sent down from the high, veld to Delagoa Bay, 
and the trucks for it were usually detached at Middel- 
burg. It was arranged that Burnham should buy a 
truck-load of wool and wire to a firm at Delagoa Bay 
offering the consignment. This was done, wires were 
exchanged, and sixteen bales of wool were duly col* 
leeted and consigned to the coast. The truck for the 
wool was brought up the line and carefully loaded. 
The bales, each of which weighed 400 lb., were so ar- 
ranged that there was a kind of tunnel at the bottom 
down the centre, in which the fugitives could hide. 
From behind the blinds in the sickroom of Mr. Howard, 
Haldane and Le Mesurier watched with acute interest 
the last stages of these preparations. 

At 5 a.m. one morning they climbed into the tunnel 
below the wool, where their friends had provided them 
with ample provisions for a week in the shape of roast 
duck and chicken, beef and bread, butter and jam, 
nine bottles of cold tea, two of water, and one of whisky. 
The tarpaulin was made fast over the top, and for 
five hours the two waited. At ten o'clock that morn- 
ing Mr. Howard came along and took a final farewell. 
A certain Field-Cornet Pretorius had arrived that 
morning and had shown himself very suspicious about 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 115 

the tablecloth in Mr. Howard's dining-room, but the 
manager had explained it with the story of a dinner 
and card party. By midday the truck was taken by 
a colliery engine to Whitbank station. Mr. Addams 
and Mr. Burnham were on the lookout there, and to 
their horror saw the Dutch driver and stoker stroll up 
and lean against the truck. They endeavoured to 
draw them away by offers of drinks ; but the driver 
would not move, and taking a paper from his pocket 
began to conduct his correspondence against the side 
of the truck. A sneeze or a word from inside would 
have given away the whole plan. Even when the 
man left the danger was not over, for while the truck 
was being shunted, one of the station officials actually 
undid the tarpaulin and looked in, but saw nothing. 

At 2.30 p.m. they were attached to a passenger 
train, and for the rest of the day jogged across the 
high veld, till at Waterval Boven, where the descent 
to the low veld begins, th train drew up for the night. 
They started again next morning, and presently they 
reached the last Transvaal station, Komati Poort, 
where a bridge spans the Komati river. This was 
the place where a search was likely, and to the intense 
disappointment of the fugitives they found the truck 
detached and pushed into a siding. Discovery seemed 



116 ESCAPES AND HTJERIED JOURNEYS 

now certain; and Haldane decided to try and bribe 
tlie first comer. He got a bag of a hundred sovereigns 
ready, and destroyed any compromising matter in Ms 
diary. 

As it happened, the Pretoria Government had wired 
to Komati Poort to order the strictest search of all 
goods trucks. The stowaways heard the unloosening 
of the ropes of their tarpaulin, and down in their 
tunnel realized it had been lifted up and thrown back. 
They saw daylight flood in at the tunnel end, and be- 
lieved that any moment the face of a station official 
would look down on them. Then to their amazement 
the tarpaulin was returned to its place. They may 
not have been seen ; or a Kafir may have caught a 
glimpse of them, and, having no desire to aid the law, 
said nothing. 

But though the tarpaulin was drawn again, their 
suspense was not over. All that day and all the 
following night they lay there, anxious, half stifled, 
and now very hungry, for they had thrown away 
most of their provisions, believing that they would 
not be needed. Saturday morning came, and they 
realized that they had hoped the day before to be 
inside the Portuguese border. At last, at 9 a.m., the 
train steamed off, and while crossing the Komati 



FROM PRETORIA TO THE SEA 117 

bridge the two men shook hands. They saw the white 
pillar which marked the boundary, and realized that 
$hey had won freedom. 

The train stopped at the first Portuguese station; 
but the two stowaways did not dare to alight. They 
waited till the evening and then crept out in the dusk. 
At a Kafir kraal close by they learned that the hotel 
there was kept by two Englishmen, and thither they 
stumbled. In five minutes they were in a back room 
being regaled with champagne by their excited com- 
patriots. 

Brockie had also escaped, but all three paid for 
some time the penalty of their wild adventure with 
malaria, and in the case of Le Mesurier with enteric. 
In a few weeks, however, they were back on duty at 
the front. Captain Haldane, as we have seen, was to 
rise to be one of the most successful British generals 
in the Great War. Brockie was killed by a mining 
accident a few years after the escape. Le Mesurier 
fell at the Second Battle of Ypres, and Frankland, 
who had assisted them to escape, died in a reconnais- 
sance at the Dardanelles. 



THE ESCAPE OF PRINCE 
CHARLES EDWARD 



THE ESCAPE OF PRINCE 
CHARLES EDWARD 

WHEN, on April 16, 1746, the clans were broken on 
Culloden Moor, the first thought of loyal hearts was 
for the safety of the Prince's person. The Rising had 
terrified the Government of George II., for it had won 
a glamour and a success which no one had believed 
to be within the bounds of possibility, and the glamour 
was created by the personality of Charles Edward. 
From a boy he had dreamed one dream and hoped one 
hope, and he had never ceased to see in solemn vision 
the crown placed upon his father's head by his own 
hands, and his father's subjects delivered by his own 
sword from a usurper's tyranny. When he was about 
twenty, a young Scottish poet, a member of a great 
Whig family which had been the enemy of Ms house, 
was visiting Rome. The Prince, who made it his 
business to know all about British travellers in Italy, 
found the young Scotsman in the Capitol, and laying 
Ms hand on Ms shoulder, addressed him by name. 

121 



122 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

" Mr. Hamilton, do you like this prospect, or the one 
from North Berwick Law best ? " North Berwick 
Law was near the home of Hamilton's Whig relatives, 
but early prejudices vanished before the charm of the 
Prince's manner and conversation, and Charles Edward 
had gained a recruit for his future army. 

This personal fascination had been the real strength 
of the Jacobite cause from the moment of the Prince's 
landing in Scotland. There had been great expecta- 
tions of French help, and when these seemed likely 
to fail, Prince Charlie had said in 1744, " I will be in 
Scotland next summer, though it is with a single 
footman." Next summer, he had landed on the little 
island of Eriskay with seven men. His small following 
alarmed the few friends who met him. The task 
seemed hopeless, and they advised him to return 
home. "I am come home," he replied, and gave 
orders to sail to the mainland. 

His personal appeal led men to join Trim in defiance 
of every dictate of interest and common-sense. "I 
will erect the royal standard," he said to Cameron of 
Lochiel, " and proclaim to the people of Britain that 
Charles Stuart is come over to claim the crown of his 
ancestors, to win it, or perish in the attempt. Lochiel, 
who, my father has often told me, was our firmest 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 123 

friend, may stay at home and learn from the news- 
papers the fate of his Prince. 3 ' The words changed 
LochiePs mind. " I will share the fate of my Prince/* 
he replied. " Will not you assist me ? " Charles asked 
another young Highlander, and drew the expected 
answer, "I will, though no other man in the High- 
lands should draw his sword." Throughout the whole 
campaign, it was the Prince who maintained the 
Jacobite army ; hope and inspiration came from him, 
and his were the fleeting triumphs that brightened the 
early months of an effort foredoomed to failure. " I 
leave for England in eight days," he said in Edinburgh, 
" England will be ours in two months ; " and in the 
Council of War at Derby his voice alone was given for 
the march to London : " to put it to the test and win 
or lose it all." After the retreat and the victory at 

Fajkirk, Charles wished to remain in the Lowlands and 

* 4 

meet Cumberland there. He hoped to the end, and 
refused to seek safety in flight while he had still an 
army to fight for him. 

On his arrival the Government had offered a reward 
of 30,000 for his head, and tradition tells that the 
Prince wished to retort by offering 30 as an adequate 
sum for the head of the Elector of Hanover. Even 
in the hour of defeat at Culloden, his followers felt that 



124 ESCAPES AND HUERIED JOUBJSFEYS 

the ministers of King George would still be eager to 
secure the person of an enemy, whose charm and fascina- 
tion had wrought one miracle and might be employed 
to work another. While the Prince was still a free 
man, could the House of Hanover be safe ? The 
savage Duke of Cumberland would certainly wish to 
add to his tarnished laurels the glory of the capture 
of the fugitive. There was little time for consideration ; 
the battle was fought and lost in less than half an hour, 
and Cumberland's fresh troops might be trusted to be 
active in the pursuit. The Prince would not believe 
that all was lost, and he tried to induce the stragglers 
to return to the charge. Those nearest to him begged 
Mm not to expose his person needlessly, for the broken 
clans would not rally. He hesitated, and one of them 
seized his bridle and turned his horse's head to the 
rear, just as, a hundred years before, his great-grand- 
father, Charles L, had been led off the field of Naseby 
with the words, " Will you go upon your death ? " 



BADEKOCH ASTD LOCHABEB 



For a few minutes it seemed as if the Prince were 
still "going upon" his death. The fire of Cumber- 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 125 

land's artillery did not slacken as the Jacobite army 
wavered, and the retreating Prince had his horse shot 
under him. A groom brought him a fresh horse, and, 
as he mounted, the man fell dead by his side. Whither 
was he to flee ? No plan had been made for the event 
of a defeat, and no rendezvous had been appointed 
for the beaten army. Accompanied by a few friends, 
and a body-guard of some fifty horse, he rode off 
towards the river Nairn. His direction was south- 
wards, and Cumberland was pushing the pursuit west- 
wards to Inverness, but had detached a body of horse 
to ride down the stragglers. Charles left the field 
blinded with tears that fell for his lost hopes, and he 
very narrowly escaped falling in with this force as he 
pursued his uncertain way. 

His bonnet fell from his head, and a private in his 
Life Guards brought him another. It was Edward 
Burke, whom the Prince recognized as a servant of 
one of his aide-de-camps. Burke belonged to an Irish 
family which, for some generations, had been settled 
in the Hebrides, and he was a native of North Uist. 
When he joined the army he was a " chairman " (the 
carrier of a sedan chair) in Edinburgh, but he had 
been a gentleman's servant, and had travelled much 
with his master, and he knew the country. " Ned," 



126 ESCAPES AND HUERIED JOURNEYS 

said the Prince, " if you be a true friend, lead us safe 
ofi." Ned, greatly honoured, did his best, and waa 
the wanderer's first guide. Ned Burke was described 
by those who knew him as true as steel but a 
rough man, and he addressed the Prince with the 
wonted fn.TniTia.rity of the Scottish peasantry, Charles 
humoured him and chaffed him, and they had a 
standing joke about "Deft speed the leears (liars)," 
a wish obviously appropriate to a disguised prince 
and his companions. 

When Ned took command of the party, the Prince 
dismissed his body-guard, and with Ned's master and 
five others he crossed the Nairn and rode for some 
distance up the right bank. It was growing late and 
they sought refuge at Tordarroch, but in vain, and 
pushing on, they recrossed the river near Aberarder, 
where they were again refused entrance. Both of 
these places were too near Inverness for safety. It 
was fortunate that they did not halt until they reached 
the hamlet of Gortuleg, where, in a house still in 
existence, they found the aged Lord Lovat, the Fox 
of the Highlands, who had played false to both sides, 
and was attempting to escape from the fate that was 
to overtake him on Tower Hill. The Prince drank 
three glasses of wine with Lovat, who reminded him 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 127 

that Robert the Bruce had lost eleven battles and won 
Scotland by the twelfth. Doubtful history, and a 
moral which could not be acted upon, were poor 
consolation, and Charles speedily left his host and 
rode on through the night. 

There was some moonlight the moon was in her 
first quarter and the tired little company reached 
Invergarry Castle just as the moon was setting. The 
house was empty and there was no food; but the 
Prince had some rest, and Ned Burke noticed a fishing 
net which had been set, and found two salmon, which 
he cooked for their breakfast. In the afternoon, they 
took to their horses again and rode along Loch Arkaig 
to Glenpean, where they spent the night. Next day 
the Prince expected a communication from his Mends 
or a hint of the doings of his pursuers, but none came, 
Cumberland, in fact, was on the wrong track. He 
thought that the fugitive had made Ms way to Lovat's 
country near Beauly, and the real route was unknown 
to the enemy. Making for the sea, the Prince walked 
from Glenpean over the hills to the beautiful region of 
Morar, had some sleep in a lonely shieling, and through 
the night of 20th April tramped to Borrodale, in Arisaig, 
where he had landed nine months before. 

Jess than a fortnight later, two French vessels, 



128 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

carrying gold, reached Borrodale, but tlie Prince was 
no longer there. He had stayed for five days, but 
he could not know where Ms safety lay, and his friends 
had sent him a fresh guide in the person of a Skye 
farmer named Donald MacLeod. The Prince went out 
to meet Donald and they had their first conversation 
alone in a wood. His new friend was horror-struck 
at the Prince's first suggestion. Like his ancestress, 
Queen Mary, Charles was seized with a mad desire to 
throw himself on the mercy of his enemies. He did 
not, indeed, propose to surrender to Cumberland's 
troops, but he asked Donald to carry letters for him 
to his own chief, MacLeod, and to Sir Alexander 
MacDonald of Sleat. These men were on the Govern- 
ment side, but he believed that they would do every- 
thing in their power for his safety. Donald replied 
that his life was at the Prince's command, but that 
nothing would induce him thus to reveal his where- 
abouts. " Does not your Excellency know that these 
men have played the rogue to you altogether, and will 
you trust them for a' that ? Na, you maunna do V 
Then Donald told him that the Laird of MacLeod and 
Sir Alexander MacDonald were searching for him 
about twelve miles away by sea, and urged that the 
sooner he left Borrodale the Better. Donald was a 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 129 

skilful seaman, and he undertook to conduct the 
Prince to the Hebrides, in the hope of finding a ship 
to take him to France. 

It was not good advice, for a British fleet commanded 
the seas, and the islands were easily watched. The 
best hiding-place was in the wild district of Morar, 
whence, as we have seen, he could have escaped within 
a fortnight. But he could not tell that his refuge 
might not be discovered. It was quite well known 
among the people, for Donald's son Murdoch, an 
Inverness schoolboy, who had run away from school 
to fight at Culloden, astonished his father by appearing 
at Borrodale ; he had traced and followed the Prince, 
and less friendly inquirers might do the same. Charles 
thought of the 30,000 reward, and as yet he did not 
realize that the Highlanders were not thinking about 
it. He spent five more unhappy and restless days 
at Borrodale, while Donald MacLeod obtained a boat 
and a crew. At last an eight-oared boat was ready, 
with eight boatmen, among whom were Ned Burke 
and the boy, Murdoch MacLeod. The Prince's com- 
panions were Captain O'Sullivan, Captain O'Neil, 
Captain Allan MacDonald, and a Roman priest. 
Donald MacLeod was skipper, and he is known to 
history as the Prince's Pilot. 



130 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

On the evening of 26th April the Pilot warned tHe 
Prince that a great storm was coming, and begged 
him not to sail; but Charles was anxious about the 
parties which were searching for him on the mainland, 
and he insisted. They were unobserved by any of the 
Government vessels; indeed, the fleet had gone off 
to the remote island of St. Kilda, misled by some 
rumour that the Prince was there. But the Pilot's 
prophecy was fulfilled ; he said afterwards that the 
tempest was more violent than any " he had ever been 
trysted with before, though all his life a seafaring 
man." Thunder and lightning and torrential rain, a 
tumcane, and a heavy sea, were a new experience for 
a Prince in an open boat. " I had rather face cannons 
and muskets than be in such a storm as this/ 5 he 
said, and told Donald to make again for the shore. 
To obey the command would have been certain death. 
** Since we are here," said the Pilot, u we have nothing 
for it but, under God, to set out to sea. . Is it not 
as good for us to be drowned in clean water as to be 
dashed in pieces upon a rock and to be drowned too ? ** 
So they made for the open sea ; it was pitch dark, 
they had neither lantern nor compass nor even a 
pump. Through the whole night scarcely a man 
spoke one word ; the thought of all was that it would 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 131 

be better to be drowned in clean water than to be 
driven on the coast of Skye, where bodies of militia- 
men were on the outlook for the wanderer. 



n 

IN THE OTJTEB ISLES 

Morning broke, and the storm was still raging, but 
they were far beyond the shores of Skye. They 
succeeded in landing at Rossinish in Benbecula, and 
found an uninhabited hut in which they lit a fire and 
dried their clothes. In this desolate region they 
remained two days, and on the night of 29th April 
set sail for the island of Scalpa, the tenant of which, 
Donald Campbell, was a friend of the Pilot. They 
agreed to represent themselves as the captain and 
crew of a ship which had been wrecked on the island 
of Tiree. O'Sullivan took the name of Captain 
Sinclair, and the Prince passed as young Sinclair, his 
son. They were hospitably received at Scalpa, and 
their host, Donald Campbell, was in the secret of the 
shipwrecked crew. They were eager, they said, tc 
return to their home in the Orkneys, and sent the 
Pilot to Stornoway to hire a vessel. 

Meanwhile, mischief was brewing. John Macaulay, 



132 ESCAPES AND HURBIED JOURNEYS 

minister of South Uist (grandfather of Lord MacaulayV, 
had heard of the Prince's coming, and he informed 
his father, Aulay Macaulay, minister of Harris. The 
Macaulays were strong Whigs, and there is a tradition 
that, tf hile Prince Charlie was in Scalpa, Aulay Macaulay 
and a neighbouring laird landed in the island with a 
boatful of armed men and announced their intention 
of earning the blood-money which the Government 
had offered. But Donald Campbell warned the Prince 
and his followers, and told the invaders that he would 
himself fall in the Prince's cause rather than give up 
a man who had entrusted him with his life, and Mac- 
aulay and his friends " sneaked off the island." At 
all events, the information sent by John Macaulay 
(who long afterwards was snubbed at Inveraray by 
Dr. Johnson) spoiled the plan of the shipwrecked 
mariners. When Donald MacLeod reached Stornoway, 
he found difficulty in securing a ship and suspected 
that the truth was known; but at last he succeeded 
in buying one and sent the good news to Scalpa. 

On 4th May the Prince, with O'SuIlivan, O'Neil, and 
Ned Burke, crossed to Harris. The journey was un- 
fortunate, for they were misled by a guide whom they 
had engaged, and they tramped all night through 
wind and rain. The Pilot met them and told them 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 133 

that he had arranged for their reception at Kildun 
House, two miles from Stornoway, and he himself 
returned to the town to make final preparations. To 
Ms surprise, he found the road barred by two or three 
hundred men in arms, who explained that they knew 
the Prince was coming with a force of five hundred men 
to seize a vessel in Stornoway, and that they feared 
the vengeance of the Government. He told them the 
truth, and they disowned any intention of doing the 
Prince an injury, but insisted on his taking his de- 
parture. It was in vain that Donald asked for a guide 
who knew these stormy seas, and he had to return and 
tell the news. The boa had followed them, though 
two of the boatmen had deserted, and on the morning 
of 6th May they set sail for Sealpa. 

As they approached the island they had the " com- 
fort and mortification" of seeing, without being 
observed, three Government vessels on the outlook, 
and they changed their course for the desert island 
of Euirn or lubhard, where they found some fishermen 
who had erected little huts, like pigstyes, for a tem- 
porary shelter. The fishermen mistook the new- 
comers for a press-gang from the wars-hips and fled, 
but they left their fish behind them, and the fugitives 
had brought some provisions. They remained fear 



134 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

four days on this desolate island, occupying one of 
the "pigstyes." It rained hard and they had to 
cover the hut with the boat-sail for shelter, but the 
Prince was in excellent spirits. He insisted on doing 
the cooking himself, and laughed at Ned Burke for 
being too fine to eat butter which had got mixed up 
with bread-crumbs. A large stone served as a table 
for the Prince and the gentlemen, and the boatmen 
ate by themselves. Leaving this retreat on 10th 
May, they returned to Scalpa, but found that their 
kind host had been compelled to flee, and that it was 
not safe for them to remain. 

It was after leaving Scalpa that the Prince had 
his first narrow escape. They were sailing south along 
the coast of Harris, when, near Finsbay, they found 
themselves within two musket shots of a man-of-war 
under full sail. Their little boat was itself under full 
sail and the boatmen rowed for dear life. "I will 
never be taken alive/' said the Prince as the race went 
on* They were hotly pursued for three leagues, until 
they reached shallow water near Rodil Point, where 
their enemy could not follow them as they sailed among 
the creeks. After an ineffectual attempt, he turned 
his course out to sea, and they hugged the coast until 
they reached Loch Maddy. There they spied another 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 135 

war-ship, but retreated from the loch without attracting 
observation, and that night (llth May) they landed 
on an island in Loch Uskavagh in Benbecula. During 
their two days* sail they were short of food, and the 
Prince, who had given his followers some lessons in 
cooking at Euirn, was taught how to make drammock, 
that is, meal mixed with water salt water unfor- 
tunately. He ate heartily of it, and his Pilot loved 
to tell how " never any meat or drink came wrong 
to him, for he could take a share of everything, be it 
good, bad, or indifferent, and was always cheerful and 
contented in every condition." 

There was need of cheerfulness, for though, as they 
were landing in the rain, one of the boatmen captured 
a crab and waved it triumphantly at the Prince, 
the hut, which was their only refuge, was so low that 
they had to dig below the door and line the hole with 
heather for the Prince to crawl through. The hut, 
said the Prince, had been inhabited by the devil, who 
had left it because he had not room enough in it. 
After three days in this island, they crossed to South 
Uist and walked to Coradale, where Charles had more 
comfortable quarters in a cottage. He was delighted 
with his new abode and sat on a turf seat smoking a 
pipe very happily until bedtime. The three weeks 



136 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

spent at Coradale were the least troubled period of his 
wanderings. He was a good shot, and brought down 
a deer one day " firing off-hand " ; he also fished from 
a small boat with a hand line. The weather was fine, 
and he often sat on a stone by the door, basking in the 
sunshine and watching the ships pass ; he deluded 
himself with the hope that they were French, but his 
friends knew that they were on the watch for him. 
Occasionally he was melancholy, but he would recover, 
and dance for a whole hour together to the music of 
a Highland reel, which he whistled as he tripped along. 
The happy days did not last long ; the Government 
troops returned from their vain journey to St. Kilda, 
and Barra and Uist began to be dangerous. Donald 
MacLeod, the Pilot, had been sent to the mainland 
and returned with news and two ankers of brandy, in 
time to accompany the Prince in the flight which was 
rendered necessary by the presence of troops in the 
neighbourhood. On 6th June, they sailed to the island 
of Ouia or Wiay, about twelve miles distant, but they 
were not yet safe, and returned to Rossinish in Ben- 
becula, fortunately not taking the Pilot with them. 
At Rossinish Charles was in grave danger, for he was 
warned to make his escape, and the passage to Ouia 
was guarded by Government vessels. Taking advan- 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 137 

tage of the short midsummer hours of darkness or 
twilight, Donald MacLeod brought a boat to the 
rescue, and they made for their old retreat at Coradale ; 
but a storm and a glimpse of two war-ships forced them 
to land where they could, and the Prince slept in a 
cleft of a rock, drawing his bonnet over big eyes for 
shelter. The storm continued to rage all next day, 
but the enemy were within two miles of them, and 
at night they found another refuge. Their hope was 
to reach the territory of MacDonald of Boisdale, who, 
they believed, could help them, and on 15th June they 
sailed for Boisdale in South Uist. 

It was a dangerous journey, for fifteen sail were 
visible at sea, and they knew that the land was guarded. 
They lay all day out of sight in a narrow creek, and 
landed at rtight on the shores of Loch Boisdale, where 
the Prince slept on a bed of heather in the shelter 
of a ruined castle. Next morning their spirits rose, 
for the Pilot saw two French ships appearing, and they 
were ready to hail them when they made the sad 
discovery that they were Government vessels. A 
party of soldiers under Captain Caroline Scott, one of 
Cumberland's best executioners, landed within a mile 
of them, and the Prince took to the hills, while the 
boatmen concealed the boat. For three days, the 



138 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Prince was engaged in dodging the Redcoats on one 
side or the other of Loch Boisdale. Their journey 
was useless, for Boisdale had been made a prisoner, 
and his wife could do no more than warn them of 
Scott's neighbourhood. 

The Prince decided on a bold and desperate plan. 
When he was at Coradale, a half-hearted friend, Ronald 
MaeDonald, the chief of Clanranald, had sent him as 
an attendant a gentleman of his clan named Neil 
Macdonald-Maceachain, the future father of a dis- 
tinguished son, Napoleon's Marshal MacDonald, Duke 
of Tarentum. Neil Maceachain had been educated 
in France for the priesthood, and Clanranald knew 
that he was fitted to be a companion for the Prince. 
Soon after Neil joined him, the Prince received a 
message from Hugh MacDonald of Armadale. This 
man was in charge of a company under his cousin, 
Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat, whose duty was 
to capture the Prince. But Hugh MacDonald had 
served in the French army and was himself a Jacobite, 
and his loyalty to his own chief was modified by the 
circumstance that his chief's wife, Lady Margaret 
MacDonald, was known to sympathize with the Prince's 
cause. Some years before lie had abducted, or eloped 
with, the young widow of Ranald MacDonald of Milton 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 139 

in South. Uist, and his stepdaughter, Flora MacDonald, 
was living with, her brother at Milton. The message 
which he sent to the Prince contained a warning that, 
since the Government forces knew him to be con- 
cealed in the Outer Hebrides, it was hopeless to try 
and elude them, and, offered a suggestion of an escape 
to Skye, where Lady Margaret would receive Mm 
in her husband's absence. The plan was that Hugh 
MacDonald should give his stepdaughter a pass or 
safe-conduct to her mother's house in Skye, that the 
Prince should be disguised as her maid, and that Neil 
Maceachain should accompany them as a servant. 

When Charles, with Captain O'Neil and Neil 
Maceachain, was in hiding on the top of one of the 
mountains overlooking Loch Boisdale, this scheme 
recurred to his mind, and, on 21st June, the three 
walked to within a short distance of a shieling where 
Flora MacDonald and her brother were tending their 
cattle. That evening the Prince, who had just parted 
with his faithful Pilot and with Ned Burke, had his 
first interview with the brave girl whose name was 
to be so honourably linked with his own. He himself 
told her of her stepfather's proposal, and she answered 
that she would gladly take the risk. It had to be 
then or never, and Flora set out at once for Benbecula 



140 ESCAPES AND HUBBIED JOURNEYS 

to arrange matters with her stepfather and to procure 
a disguise from Lady Clanranald, while the Prince and 
his two followers found shelter in the hills near his 
old quarters at Coradale. Next day, the impatient 
Prince sent Neil Maceachain to Benbecula to bring 
back a report ; but when he came to the fords between 
South Uist and Benbecula, he found that they were 
closely guarded at low tide when alone they are 
passable. Flora MacDonald had met with the same 
difficulty the preceding day, and each of them asked 
to be taken to the captain of the company, who was 
Hugh MacDonald. Neil found Flora breakfasting with 
her stepfather, and they arranged that Neil and the 
Prince should meet her at Eossinish. The difficulty 
was to bring him there ; they dared not risk an attempt 
to pass by the fords. But Neil was lucky enough to 
find some fishermen whom he knew, and they ferried 
the Prince and Captain O'Neil and himself to the coast 
of Benbecula, in the darkness, and left them on a 
tidal island, much to the alarm of the Prince, who 
awoke from a sound sleep to find himself upon a small 
rock surrounded by water. 

At low tide they made their way to the shore, and 
after a cold wet night in the heather, set out for 
Rossinish in a wild storm of wind and rain. Walking 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 141 

was very difficult, and the exhausted Prince was 
constantly falling into holes concealed by the heather 
or losing his shoes in the bogs. At last they reached 
the rendezvous, and Neil went on to reconnoitre. He 
did not find Flora or Lady Clanranald, and he was 
informed that twenty of the Skye militiamen were in 
a tent about a quarter of a mile away. There seemed 
nothing for it but another night in the heather, but 
they found shelter at some little distance, in a house 
belonging to a tenant of Clanranald. At dawn their 
hostess turned them out because she knew the militia- 
men were corning to buy milk, and they hid them- 
selves under a rock by the shore. The rain never 
ceased, and they thought that all the windows of 
heaven had been broken open. The rock was an 
insufficient protection, and a swarm of midges settled 
upon the Prince's face and hands, inflicting such misery 
that he cried out in his pain and despair. At last, 
they were told that the militia had gone ; they returned 
to a warm room and a bright fire ; the Prince hung 
up his clothes to dry, sat at the fireside in his shirt 
" as merry and hearty as if he was in the best room 
at Whitehall," and slept contentedly upon the door, 
which was taken down and covered with a ragged 
sail to make a bed for him. 



142 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Two days later, on the evening of 27th June, Flora 
MacDonald arrived with her brother and Lady Clan- 
ranald and Captain O'Neil, who had gone in search of 
the ladies. They sat down to a good supper, but had 
scarcely begun when a herd rushed breathlessly into 
the room and told them that General Campbell was 
landing his men three miles away. In a few minutes 
they were in the boat, and they spent the night crossing 
Loch Uskavagh and finished their supper on the other 
side at five o'clock in the morning. Lady Clanranald 
then returned to Benbecula to plead with General 
Campbell to spare her home. Flora's brother went 
with her, and Flora insisted that Captain O'Neil should 
accompany them. She disliked the attentions he paid 
her, and she knew that his presence would draw fresh 
suspicion upon her little company, which was to 
consist of the Prince, Neil Maceachain, ana herself. 
Her stepfather's passport was for herself and her 
servant, and for a woman named Betty Burke, an 
expert with the spinning-wheeL As an additional 
precaution, Hugh MacDonald had furnished her with 
a letter to his wife, saying that Betty's services should 
be secured for the spinning of a large quantity of lint 
which was in the house at Armadale. 

Before Lady Clanranald left, she, with Flora Mac- 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 143 

Donald's help, dressed the Prince in the clothes they 
had prepared for him. He laughed and the lady 
wept as they clad Mm in the coarse garb of a gentle- 
woman's servant a light-coloured quilted petticoat, 
a flowered calico gown, a white apron, and a long 
dark cloak made of the rough homespun known as 
camlet. The head-dress was large enough to cover his 
whole head and face. Charles was much amused by 
the apron, and kept telling them not to forget it. 

At eight o'clock on the evening of 28th June, Flora, 
with Betty Burke and Neil Maceachain, set sail from 
Benbecula for Skye. The sea was rough, but the 
Prince was in great spirits, and he sang the Cavalier 
songs which told of the Restoration of his great-uncle, 
Charles II. " The twenty-ninth of May " and " The 
King shall enjoy his own again." Flora MacDonald 
fell asleep, and he kept guard lest any of the boatmen 
should stumble over her in the darkness. 



ra 

IN SZYE 

Next morning they were ofi the coast of Skye with 
a heavy gale in their faces. They were about to land 



144 ESCAPES AND HUREIED JOURNEYS 

at the Point of Waternish, when they saw two sentries, 
one of whom ordered them to stop. They rowed out 
to sea as fast as they could ; he fired and missed them, 
and his companion went off to give the alarm. Fifteen 
men came up, and two boats were lying ready. Pursuit 
and capture seemed inevitable, for the Prince had no 
arms, but the soldiers were content with walking along 
the shore and watching the direction taken by the 
little boat, and, after hiding in a creek, Flora and her 
companions landed undisturbed at Kilbride, in Troter- 
nish, near Monkstat, the house of Sir Alexander 
MacDonald of Sleat. The laird, as they knew, was 
with Cumberland at Fort Angustus, but they were 
sure of help from Lady Margaret. 

Mora MacDonald took Neil with her to Monkstat, 
and left the Prince in the boat. The boatmen were 
instructed, if any inquiry should be made about the 
person in the boat, to answer that it was a maid of 
Miss MacDonald's, a lazy jade who would not follow 
her mistress. At Monkstat Flora obtained a private 
interview with Lady Margaret, and found that there 
were two guests in the house MacDonald of Kings- 
burgh, Sir Alexander's factor or land agent, and 
Lieutenant Alexander MacLeod, who was in command 
of the party which had so nearly caught the Prince. 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 145 

Lady Margaret sent for Kingsburgh and told Mm the 
story. It was impossible to risk a meeting between 
Betty Burke and Lieutenant MacLeod, and lie promised 
to take the Prince to Ins own house at Kingsburgh. 
Neil was sent to convoy the Prince from the boat to 
a hill a mile from Monkstat, and a bundle of clothes 
was prepared in order that Betty Burke might be seen 
to carry her mistress's baggage. They reached the 
trysting-place in safety, and the Prince sent Neil back 
to the boat for a case of knives which would have 
aroused suspicion if it had been found by the enemy. 
Neil reluctantly left him within a gun-shot of the 
highroad, and returned to find that Kingsburgh had 
brought him wine and biscuits. He had tracked Mm 
through noticing a number of sheep running away as 
if alarmed by a stranger, a hint which, fortunately, 
was not taken by any of the soldiers who were moving 
about. 

Lady Margaret's problem was to lull any suspicions 
of her other guest, and for this purpose Flora Mac- 
Donald dined at Monkstat, and had a conversation 
with Lieutenant MacLeod, who was anxious to know 
if, in her journey from Benbecula, she had heard 
anything about the movements of Charles Edward. 
She gave discreet answers to his inquiries, and, in his 



146 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

presence, Lady Margaret strongly opposed the sug- 
gestion that Flora should go home that night. She 
had often promised them a visit, and she must not 
leave them after a few hours. Flora begged to be 
excused ; she was anxious to see her mother, and to be 
at home in these troublous times. Lady.. Margaret 
reluctantly yielded, but insisted on sending her own 
maid with her. Flora set out on horseback, and soon 
overtook Kingsburgh, Betty Burke, and Neil. Some 
of the neighbours followed her and were much inter- 
ested in Betty. They remarked on the impudence 
with which she walked and talked with Kingsburgh, 
and were indignant that he should make a serving- 
woman his companion and pay no attention to her 
mistress. They observed her masculine walk, and 
were much shocked by the carelessness with which 
she raised her skirts t%Leri fording a stream. Neil 
pacified them by saying that she was an Irish girl, 
whom Miss Flora had picked up in Uist and had brought 
tome because of her marvellous skill in spinning. At 
last they shook off their inquisitive companions, and 
the little party reached Kingsburgh House about mid- 
night. 

The mistress of the house had gone to bed, and was 
roused by the visit of an excited daughter, " O mother, 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 147 

my father has brought in such a very odd, muckle, 
ill-shaken-up wife as ever I saw ! " Mrs. MacDonald 
went down and found Betty Burke traversing the hall 
with " wide, lang steps." Her husband asked her to 
get some supper, and Betty Burke saluted her with a 
kiss from unshaven lips. Kingsburgh followed her 
and told her that they had the Prince a3 a guest. 
They agreed that it was a hanging matter, but resolved 
to die in a good cause, and the lady's anxiety was 
diverted from the gallows by the difficulty of providing 
a supper fit for a prince. She brought him roasted 
eggs and bread and butter, and he drank two bottles 
of small beer and a bumper of brandy. Then he 
produced a cracked pipe which he had tied up with 
thread, and asked for tobacco, which Kingsburgh gave 
Mm along with a new pipe. 

In the morning the Prince slept late, and Flora and 
Kingsburgh took counsel together. They knew the 
amiable methods of the soldiery, and were sure that 
the boatmen, threatened with torture, would tell the 
story of Betty Burke. Though they were reluctant 
to disturb the Prince's rest, it was necessary to get him 
away at once. They roused Mm and dressed Mm in 
Ms female attire, for it was obviously desirable that 
he should leave the house in Ms disguise, so that any 



148 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOUENEYS 

information which leaked out through the servants 
might lead Ms pursuers to watch for a man in woman's 
clothes. Before he left, Flora cut a lock from his hair, 
and bis hostess gave him a silver snuff -bos engraved 
with two clasped hands and the motto " Rob Gib." 
Some days later the Prince noticed the motto, asked a 
companion what it meant, and was told that Rob 
Gib's contract was stark love and kindness. " I will 
keep it all my life," he said. 

Kingsburgh accompanied him on his way, and, in a 
wood, Betty Burke changed into Highland dress, and 
" with a claymore in his hand he was a soger-like man 
indeed." Bidding farewell to Kingsburgh with the 
words, " I am afraid I shall not meet another Mac- 
Donald in my difficulties," he and Neil Maceachain 
walked to Portree under the guidance of a little boy. 
He left Kingsburgh just in time, for Monkstat and 
Kingsburgh House were soon searched by the fierce 
General Ferguson, who insulted Mrs. MacDonald and 
met her denials of the Prince's presence with the 
remark that she had put the maid in a better room 
than her mistress. Cumberland was furious at the 
Prince's escape, and ordered the arrest of Kingsburgh, 
who, he said, tad neglected the greatest service which 
could have been done to King George. The Prince's 



ESCAPE OF PRIXCE CHARLES EDWARD 149 

host spent twelve months in prison as the reward of 
one night's hospitality. 

At Kingsburgh Charles had again proposed to throw 
himself on the mercy of MacLeod, but had been 
persuaded to fall in with an arrangement made by 
Lady Margaret and Kingsburgh. One of Sir Alexander 
MacDonald's clan, Donald Roy MacDonald, had been 
prevented by his chief from going to the Prince when 
he raised his standard, but had joined after the battle 
of Prestonpans, had been wounded in the foot at 
Culloden, and was hiding in a surgeon's house in 
Troternish. It was agreed at Monkstat that Donald 
Roy MacDonald should meet the Prince at Portree, 
and arrange for his crossing to the island of Raasay 
under the protection of the Laird of Raasay. 

While Charles was at Kingsburgh, Donald Roy 
succeeded in finding a son of the Laird of Raasay, 
known by the name of his father's property of Rona, 
a neighbouring island. All the boats in Skye had 
been commandeered, and Rona had to take a crazy 
old boat which he found abandoned in a fresh-water 
loch, and to convey it to the sea, in order to obtain 
one of his father's boats from Raasay. Before the 
Prince reached Portree on 30th June, Rona had 
returned accompanied by his brother, Murdoch Mac- 



150 ESCAPES AND HUERIED JOURNEYS 

Leod, and by a cousin, Captain Malcolm MacLeod 
Flora MacDonald performed her last service to the 
Prince by riding to Portree to make sure of his recep- 
tion, and the whole party the Prince, Flora Mac- 
Donald, Neil Maceachain, Donald Roy MacDonald, 
and the three MacLeods met at an inn. Charles 
purchased a quarter of a pound of tobacco, and Donald 
Boy had to insist upon his taking three halfpence 
brought him by the landlord as change for sixpence ; 
but in spite of this warning of the danger of arousing 
suspicion by unheard-of liberality, he proposed later 
to be satisfied with eleven shillings as change for a 
guinea, the landlord not being able to produce more 
silver. Donald Roy checked him and got the guinea 
changed elsewhere. 

They were to sail about midnight, and the Prince 
made his farewells. He had always treated Flora 
MacDonald with the greatest deference, and invariably 
rose when she entered the room, and he used to speak 
of her as "our Lady." He kissed her the usual 
salutation of the time. " For all that has happened/* 
he said, " I hope, madam, we shall meet in St. James's 
yet." Nine days had elapsed since they first met 
in the shieling in South Uist ; for three days they 
had been fellow-wanderers. He was not destined to 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 151 

receive her at St. James's, nor ever to see her again 
after their parting in the village inn, but a gracious 
recollection of " our Lady " can never have been 
obliterated by the sins and the sorrows of later years, 
She was again to meet a Prince of Wales, for, when she 
was a prisoner in London, the heir of George II. paid 
his respects to her and gave to history one of the 
few pleasant stories that are recorded of " Fred who 
was alive and is dead." Four years later she married 
Kingsburgh's son ; she became the mother of many 
children ; she entertained Dr. Johnson in the house 
to which she had brought Prince Charlie. Her ad- 
ventures were not yet over, for, in the year after 
Johnson's visit, she and her husband emigrated to 
ISl'orth Carolina, and she saw the fighting in the early 
campaigns of the American War. She returned to 
Skye and died at Kingsburgh in 1790, two years after 
" King Charles HL" had breathed Ms last at Rome. 
Those three June days when she was the Prince's 
preserver have consecrated her name and her memory 
while courage and loyalty are deemed worthy of the 
reverence of mankind. 

The Prince had still before him many weary wander- 
ings. He bade good-bye that evening not only to 
Flora MacDonald, but also to Neil Maceachain, whom 



152 ESCAPES AOT) HURRIED JOURNEYS 

he sent to attend the Lady to her home. Donald Roy 
was lame and could not accompany him, and he was 
conducted by the two MacLeods, Murdoch and Mal- 
colm ; he went off with a bottle of whisky strapped 
to his belt at one side, and a bottle of brandy, some 
shirts, and a cold fowl on the other side. They 
reached Raasay safely; but the Prince thought the 
island too small for concealment, and during the short 
time they were there they were alarmed by a man 
whom the islanders suspected to be a spy. He came 
near their hut, and Malcolm MacLeod proposed to shoot 
him, but Charles forbade him, and the stranger passed 
on without looking in. The Prince insisted upon re- 
turning to Skye ; he was not quite happy among 
MacLeods and wished to be with Donald Roy again. 

Late on the evening of 2nd July they left Raasay 
in a storm, the Prince singing a Highland song to 
cheer the boatmen ; he had learned Gaelic in the 
course of his expedition. They landed at Scorry- 
breck, close to Portree, and the Prince spent an uneasy 
night in a cow byre, often wakening up and looking 
round him with a startled air. " poor England," 
he was heard to murmur in Ms sleep. Donald Roy 
had been sent for, but was unable to come, and Malcolm 
MacLeod warned the Prince that parties of soldiers 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHAELES EDWARD 153 

were on the outlook, and that they must set out 
without a moment's delay. They walked to Mao 
Mnnon's country, the part of Skye known as Strath, 
and the Prince passed as MacLeod's servant and took 
the name of Lewie Caw, a fugitive from Culloden who 
was known to be hiding in Skye. Lewie Caw carried 
the baggage and was caref id to walk behind his master 
and to show no curiosity when MacLeod met an ac- 
quaintance. They redoubled their precautions when 
they entered Mackinnon's country, because Maekinnon 
had been " out " and the district was specially watched. 
Charles exchanged his waistcoat with MacLeod because 
it looked too fine for a servant, and promised some day 
to give him a better waistcoat still when he himself 
should walk in London streets dressed in the kilt 
which Kingsburgh had given him. He removed his 
periwig and covered his head with a dirty napkin, 
but MacLeod insisted that any one who had ever 
seen him would know him again. "This is an odd 
remarkable face I have got that nothing can disguise 
it,** he said, and MacLeod, as he looked at him, felt 
that no disguise could conceal his possession of " some- 
thing that was not ordinary, something of the grand 
and stately ." 
In this way they reached Elgol and met the old 



154 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Laird of Mackinnon, who arranged to accompany the 
Prince to the mainland. Malcolm MacLeod, himself a 
person for whom search was being made, thought that 
the Prince would be safer without him, and Charles 
reluctantly let Hm go, sending with Mm a note of 
thanks to Donald Roy. "Sir," it read, "I thank 
God I am in good health and have got off as designed. 
Remember me to all friends, and thank them for the 
trouble they have been at. I am, Sir, your humble 
servant, JAMES THOMSON." 



IV 

ET LOCHABEB 

The Prince, with the old laird and his son, John 
Mackinnon, landed on the shore of Loch Nevis at 
four o'clock in the morning of 5th July, and spent 
three nights in the heather. On the morning of 8th 
July the old laird went to seek a cave as a shelter, 
and the Prince and John Mackinnon rowed up the 
loch. Suddenly, as they came round a point, their 
oars struck some wood, and they saw a boat tied to a 
rock and five men standing near it on the shore. 
They were at once challenged, and, when the boatmen 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 155 

answered that they came from Sleat, they were ordered 
to come ashore. They disobeyed, and the militiamen 
jumped into their own boat and pursued. John 
MacKinnon himself took an oar, for the Prince's life 
depended upon the race that summer morning. Charles 
was sitting in the bottom of the boat with his head 
between Mackinnon's legs. He wanted to make for 
the shore and trust to his powers of running; but 
Mackinnon spread a plaid over his head that he might 
not be seen, and told Mm firmly that he had no chance 
on a bare hillside, that their only hope of escape lay 
in their oars, and that if the pursuers came up he 
could rely on them all to fight to the last. Each 
boatman sat with a loaded musket beside him. From 
time to time the Prince inquired how the race was 
going, and Mackinnon was always able to answer that 
they were holding their own. It was not enough, but 
a desperate effort carried them round a point and out 
of sight of the enemy. The coast was wooded, and the 
Prince, Mackinnon, and one of the boatmen jumped 
ashore and plunged into the trees. The boat went on, 
but the pursuers, coming again within view 3 saw that 
their prey had escaped, and Charles, from the top of 
a hill, watched them return, while Mackinnon waa 
apologizing for having disobeyed his commands. " I 



156 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

only wanted," lie replied, " to fight for my life rather 
than be taken prisoner." 

Later in the day they recrossed the loch and walked 
through the night to Morar, and MacDonald of Morar 
gave them his son as a guide to Borrodale. They 
made for the house of the Laird of Borrodale, Angus 
MacDonald, but it had been burned down by the 
troops, and they found him in a neighbouring hut. 
When John Mackinnon announced the Prince's 
presence, the old man said, "I shall lodge him so 
secure that all the forces in Britain shall not find him 
out." After his narrow escape two days before, 
Charles had received a cold message from Clanranald 
and a refusal of help from Morar, and Borrodale's 
welcome gave Mm fresh heart and hope. 

The two Mackinnons left him at Borrodale, and 
both of them fell at once into the hands of the soldiers, 
who could not fail to suspect the Prince's presence 
in the neighbourhood. The news of their capture 
made old Borrodale doubly cautious, and on 13th July 
he hid the Prince in a cleft between two precipitous 
rocks where he had constructed a little hut and had 
covered it with green turf, so that it looked like a 
natural grass-covered brae. Here the Prince was 
joined by a nephew of Ms host, Alexander MacDonald 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHABLES EDWABD 157 

of Glenaladale, who was Ms companion in most of 
what remained of his wanderings. Glenaladale had 
been wounded three times at Culloden, but he responded 
at once to the Prince's call. They did not remait 
long at Borrodale, for they learned that the Prince's 
presence in that region was known to the enemy, and 
they could see the ships on the coast. On 17th July 
they set out for a new place of concealment in Morar, 
where they learned that General Campbell, with six 
ships, had anchored in Loch Nevis, and that a party 
of soldiers was near them. It was clear that they 
were surrounded, and that they must break through 
the enemy's line of posts, and make for the north in 
the hope of finding a French ship at Poolewe, near 
Loch Maree* 

Every day brought fresh perils and new adventures. 
At their first setting out they saw from the top of 
a hill some cattle being moved, and discovered that 
Glenaladale's tenants were saving their property from 
the troops, who were taking the very route by which 
the Prince had intended to go. This led them t<? 
send for a fresh guide, Donald Cameron of Glenpean, 
to conduct them out of the dangerous region of Morar. 
While they waited for him they learned that a hundred 
Argyllshire militiamen were at the foot of the very 



158 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Mil on the top of which, they were resting. They 
could not stay for their guide, and, as the sun was 
setting, they moved on. A solitary figure was seen 
approaching them, and they could not tell whether 
the man was friend or foe, but, to their relief, it proved 
to be Donald Cameron, and he promised to lead them 
safely through the enemy's outposts. 

From the head of Loch Eil to the head of Loch 
Hourn there was a long series of small camps about 
half a mile from each other ; the sentries were each 
within call of his neighbour, and patrols were con- 
stantly moving to keep the sentries alert. Cameron 
led them to a hill which had just been searched, and 
might, therefore, be regarded as safe, but they had no 
provisions except a little oatmeal and some butter, 
and, after some wanderings, they found a hiding-place 
for the Prince on a hill at the head of Loch Quoich, 
while some of the party went to get provisions. They 
brought back the news that a hundred redcoats were 
marching up the other side of the hill, and the whole 
party set out again towards nightfall. As they 
trudged along they saw in front of them a camp-fire, 
but they decided that they must take the risk of 
passing through the enemy. To remain in the region 
of Moidart meant certain capture. They crept along, 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 159 

going so near the camp that they could hear the soldiers 
talking, but they were unobserved. As they were 
climbing the next hill they came across a rivulet 
which, emerging from a spring, fell straight down a 
precipice. The Prince missed his footing, and was 
about to fall, but was supported by Donald Cameron 
and Glenaladale, and they reached the top in safety, 
only to see another camp-fire at the foot. This they 
were able to avoid, but, although they had broken 
through the cordon, their route still lay along the line 
of the camps. 

At the head of Loch Hourn they hid in a hollow 
which was covered with long heather and birch trees. 
They were faint with hunger, and one of them, a son 
of old Borrodale, produced from his pocket a small 
quantity of meal. He used to tell afterwards of the 
change produced on the faces of his companions by 
the sight of it. Their guide, Donald Cameron, was not 
sure of the way from this point, and in the evening 
he and Glenaladale went to find a new guide. When 
the two emerged from the hollow they found that they 
had spent the day quite close to one of the enemy's 
camps; they returned, and the whole party at once 
set out for Glenshiel. The night was very dark, and 
they had nothing to eat, but in the morning they got 



160 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

butter and cheese ia a village in Glenshiel, where they 
were fortunate enough to find a guide, named Donald 
MacDonald, who had fought in the Prince's army and 
was fleeing from the troops. They also learned the 
unpleasant news that a French ship had just left 
Poolewe, and that it would be useless to go there. 
That day, 22nd July, was very hot, and they lay on a 
mountain side parched with thirst ; a stream was near, 
and they could hear the sound of the water, but they 
dared not move. At sunset Donald Cameron bade 
them good-bye, and a small boy, the son of the man 
from whom they bought their provisions, arrived with 
some goats' milk as a present to Glenaladale. 

Thus refreshed, they turned their course southwards 
for Glenmoriston, under their new guide ; but they had 
scarcely gone a mile when Glenaladale missed his 
purse, which contained the Prince's gold. The Prince 
found a hiding-place, and Glenaladale and young 
Borrodale proceeded to search for the purse. They 
soon found it empty. There could be no doubt 
about the thief, for Glenaladale remembered taking 
it out to give four shillings to the boy who had brought 
the milk. They walked back to his father's house* 
and made their complaint. The father seized a rope 
and threatened to hang the boy to the nearest tree, 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 161 

and the money was returned. The boy's crime saved 
the Prince. As he lay waiting, with the guide and 
another attendant, an officer with a small armed party 
passed close to him, having come by the track along 
which the fugitives were going. Charles dared not 
send to warn Glenaladale and his companion, and he 
lay in grave anxiety until they arrived. The officer 
had passed them on the other side of a stream, and 
neither of the two parties had seen the other. If 
Glenaladale had not missed his purse, and they had 
all pursued their original route, they must have met 
the soldiers, and, though they would have outnumbered 
them, the noise of the conflict could not have failed 
to bring larger numbers of the enemy. 

They went on towards Glenmoriston, walking by 
night and hiding by day, the Prince made miserable 
by swarms of midges. On 24th July, they reached 
the Braes of Glenmoriston and found some friendly 
MacDonalds, Highland robbers by profession, one of 
whom recognized the Prince. " I hope," he said, 
" to see you yet in a better condition, as I have seen 
you before at the head of your army on Glasgow 
Green." For a week the Prince remained concealed 
in Glenmoriston. His host told him of a cave which 
could shelter forty men, the best water in the High- 



162 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

lands running through it, and a heather bed ready 
for his reception. After three days of these comforts, 
they moved to another grotto, equally picturesque, 
but a party of militia was reported to be within four 
miles of them, and the Prince was again in hopes of 
finding a French ship at Poolewe. 

On the night of 1st August they set out northwards 
and spent next day in Strathglass, where the Prince 
rested in a tent made of fir-branches. They continued 
on this route until 7th August, when, on a hill called 
Beinn Acharain, they heard again that only one French 
ship had reached Poolewe, and that it had sailed, 
leaving behind two French officers who hoped to meet 
the Prince in the region of Loch Eil. This information 
led them to retrace their steps, which they did without 
any adventure until they found themselves again in 
the Braes of Glenmoriston on ,12th August. There 
they were delayed by a party of soldiers" in Glengarry, 
but the road was soon clear, and they went on without 
difficulty except for heavy rain and want of pro- 
visions. No food could be obtained, for the troops 
had wasted the country and driven the inhabitants 
into the hills. But in their utmost need, near Loch 
Arkaig, one of the party shot a hart, on which they 
u most deliciously feasted." 




A storm and a glimpse of two war-ship forced them to land. 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 163 

On 21st August, on the shores of Loch Arkaig, 
Archibald Cameron, a brother of Lochiel, who had been 
a physician in the Prince's army, and was afterwards 
to give his life for the cause in London, brought to 
the Prince two French officers who had landed at 
Poolewe in June, and had been looking for him ever 
since, but they could give him no information of any 
value. Two days later, as the Prince lay sleeping, 
he was told that a party of two hundred men were 
close to him ; a friendly guard was believed to have 
been placed and, as they had received no warning, they 
concluded that there was treachery and that they were 
surrounded. The Prince asked for Ms gun, and the 
small party, eight in number, at once took up a position 
on the hillside, determined to sell their lives dear* 
" I was bred a fowler," said Charles. " I can charg 
quick and am a tolerable marksman, and I can be sure 
of one at least.** But the soldiers, after searching the 
hut which the Prince had just left, went off in another 
direction, and Charles lay down and slept peacefully 
in the rain. 

This was his last adventure, for the authorities were 
giving up the search in despair. Cumberland had left 
Fort Augustus on 18th July, and Ms successor as 
commander-in-cMef, the Earl of Albemarle, wrota 



164 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

from Fort Augustus to the Secretary of State on 
12th August that he was to leave for Edinburgh next 
day. "The last party I sent out/ 5 he explained 
" (upon a report that the Pretender's son was in 
Glen Dessary), returned last night without any tidings 
of him, and I can make no conjecture of the place he 
lies concealed in, therefore cannot help suspecting 
he is gone off, either in some of the small French 
vessels that have been hovering along the coast, or in 
a boat to the Long Island. I shall march with the 
troops, and not leave them till I see them quartered 
at Perth, Stirling, and other places." On the day 
the letter was written, the Prince was in Glenmoriston ; 
three days later, at Loch Arkaig, he was not far from 
Glen Dessary. He had crossed the head of Glen 
Dessary on 19th July, and a report to this effect had 
reached Albemarle much too late. The recall of the 
troops for their southward march explains the com- 
parative security of the fugitives, and about the same 
time the militia regiments were disbanded after their 
fruitless search. 

On 27th August MacDonnell of Lochgarry and 
Dr. Archibald Cameron guided the Prince into the 
friendly country of duny Macpherson, where he was 
to remain until the arrival of a French ship could be 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 165 

definitely ascertained. Lochiel had a touching meet- 
ing with him on 30th August. He knelt to greet his 
Prince. " No, my dear Lochiel," said Charles, " you 
don't know who may be looking from the tops of 
yonder hills." They were entertained in LoehiePs 
hiding-place, where the fugitive ate minced collops 
out of a saucepan with a silver spoon and exclaimed 
that at last he was living like a prince. Cluny himself 
joined them on 1st September ; he had been originally 
on the side of the Government, but had been captured 
by the Jacobite army in August 1745, had joined the 
Prince with his clan after Prestonpans, had marched 
into England and fought at Falkirk, but had been too 
late for Culloden. He took the Prince to a cunningly 
devised refuge which he had provided to avoid the 
dampness of a cave. Cluny's " cage " was situated 
in some holly bushes on a rough hillside overlooking 
Loch Ericht. The floor consisted of rows of felled trees, 
made level with earth and gravel. Young trees 
growing between the planks of the floor formed a 
series of stakes, which served for the construction of a 
thatched roof bound with ropes made of heather and 
birch twigs. A large tree which rested on a rock lay 
across the top of the hut and gave it the appearance 
of a cage hanging from a tree. A crevice between two 



166 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

stones formed a chimney, and the smoke of the peat 
fire was so near in colour to the stones that it was 
invisible. The hut was divided into two chambers, 
of which the upper was the living room and the lower 
served as a kitchen. 

In this cage, with sentinels posted round, the Prince, 
with Cluny, Lochiel, Dr. Cameron, and sis others, 
lived pleasantly enough for a week. They had plenty 
of provisions and found amusement in a pack of cards. 
At one o'clock in the morning of 13th September, they 
were roused by a messenger who reported the presence 
of two French ships in Loch Nan Uamh. No time 
was to be lost, and they set out at once for the coast 
of South Morar, but they did not forget to send the 
news to other fugitives who were in hiding among 
them Neil Maceachain, who met them on the coast 
and escaped with them* 

It was still necessary to walk by night and hide by 
day ; but one day the Prince, who had just received 
three mounted firelocks which he had left in the course 
of his wanderings, felt himself safe enough to challenge 
Ms companions to a test of skill in marksmanship. 
They threw their bonnets into the air and shot at 
them, "in which diversion His Royal Highness far 
exceeded." He played a poor practical joke on one 



ESCAPE OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 167 

of Ms followers, wrapping himself in a plaid and lying 
on the floor of a hut at the entrance to which was a 
large puddle. As his victim approached, the Prince 
peeped out of the plaid ; and with a cry of " O Lord I 
my Master ! " the unfortunate man fell into the puddle. 
When they reached the river Lochy, he was greatly 
delighted by being given some brandy which had been 
brought from the enemy's garrison at Fort Augustus. 
On 16th September they reached the ruins of Lochiel's 
house at Achnacarry, which had been burned by 
Cumberland, and on the 19th they were once more 
at Borrodale. Cluny knew that he was safe in Ms own 
wild country, and, shortly after midnight, he watched 
the Prince, with LocMel and Dr. ArcMbald Cameron, 
sail in the frigate Prince de Conti, whence they were 
transferred to her slightly larger consort, ISHeureux. 
The two French vessels had arrived in Loch Boisdale 
on 5th September ; they had been searching for the 
Prince for a fortnight, and their commanders were 
beginning to despair of finding him. 

All of Prince Charlie's companions who left records 
of his wanderings testify to his courage and endurance. 
** The Prince submitted with patience to Ms adverse 
fortune, was cheerful, and frequently desired those 



168 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

that were with him to be so. He was cautious when 
in the greatest danger, never at a loss in resolving what 
to do. He regretted more the distress of those who 
suffered for adhering to his interest than the dangers 
and hardships he was exposed to." If the record of 
Prince Charlie's escape is honourable to himself, it is 
not less honourable to the people who, at their gravest 
peril, sheltered and protected him, and the unfor- 
getable story which clings to Highland glens and 
island shores speaks not of the Prince alone but also 
of the men and women who saved him. Among the 
things that abide is the memory of such as be faithful 
in love. 



VI 

TWO APRICAN JOURNEYS 



TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS 

Isr an ancient and closely settled land fateful journeys 
are for the most part short ones. The key-points 
of danger and safety are not far apart, and a mile or 
two may be the margin between success and failure. 
But in a country of infinite spaces the case is other- 
wise, and such a country is Africa. Hence African 
journeys against time have covered wide areas from 
the days when Moses led the Children of Israel across 
the Red Sea. They have naturally, too, been associated 
with seasons of war. In this chapter I propose to tell 
of two: one taken from the early history of Natal; 
and the other from the Mashonaland Rebellion, the 
last of those native wars which seriously threatened 
the white settlements in the south of the continent. 



In the thirties of last century South Africa was 

disturbed by two great movements. One was the 

in 



172 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

rise of the military power of the Zulus, which began 
when the exiled Dingiswayo, having seen British 
soldiers in shakos drilling in. Cape Town, returned 
to introduce something of their discipline and drill 
among his countrymen. His successor, Tchaka, be- 
came a kind of black Napoleon, eating up the neigh- 
bouring tribes and acquiring their land and cattle, 
and driving the broken remnants north of the Drakens- 
berg. One of the principal of these refugees, Mosili- 
katse, fled with his clan north of the Vaal, and became 
the founder of that Matabele nation which we shall 
hear of again. After Tchaka came Dingaan, an in- 
ferior general, but formidable because he commanded 
a vigorous nation in arms. 

The other movement was caused by the restlessness 
of the Dutch settlers in Cape Colony under British 
rule. They disliked the British law which made the 
black man and the white man equal in legal rights ; 
they objected to taxation ; they were offended by 
many novelties which threatened their old traditions. 
So some of them took the bold step of moving with 
their families north into the wilderness in search of 
a land where they could live as in the old days. 

The story of the Great Trek, a fine story on the 
whole with many splendid tales in it of heroism against 



TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS 173 

odds, does not concern us here. It suffices to say 
that, after desperate battles with Mosilikatse, the 
Boers drove him north of the Limpopo and began 
the settlement of the countries which we know to-day 
as the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Our 
concern is with the little country of Natal lying to 
the east of that no-man's-land of Kaflraria, where 
native wars had been grumbling for thirty years. 

Natal is a land of rich valleys lying between the 
Drakensberg range and the sea. Just after it had 
been devastated by Tchaka's armies, a small group of 
British traders arrived at Durban Bay and founded 
a tiny settlement, which managed to keep on good 
terms with the Zulu king. In 1834 they petitioned 
the British Government that the country should be 
occupied as a British colony, but on financial grounds 
the British Government declined. Next year ap- 
peared a certain Captain Allen Gardiner, an ex-officer 
of the Royal Navy, who had devoted his life to mis- 
sionary work. He visited Dingaan's court, but found 
the soil there unfruitful; so he settled on the coast 
and was one of the founders of the port of Durban, 
named in honour of Sir Benjamin D'Urban, the Gover- 
nor of Cape Colony. Money was raised for clearing 
the bush and improving the town, and those who had 



174 ESt APES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

ao money to subscribe gave one week's work. Among 
the latter was a young Englishman, by name Dick 
King, who acted as Captain Gardiner's wagon driver. 
Of him we shall presently hear. 

When the Great Trek began a party of Boers, under 
the famous Pieter Uys, trekked through Kaffraria 
and reached Durban, There they were warmly wel- 
comed by the few British settlers, and on their return 
to Cape Colony they gave a glowing account of the 
Promised Land they had discovered. But the main 
Boer emigration did not take that direction. When 
the Boers entered Natal in force, they came from 
the north through the Drakensberg passes under the 
leadership of Pieter Retief. Retief also received a 
hearty welcome at Durban, and paid a visit to Din- 
gaan's court in order to arrange for the occupation 
by his countrymen of some of the land along the 
Tugela River. The Zulus were purely a nation of 
soldiers and cattle-owners, and most of the best land 
in the country was untilled. 

The story of the Boers in Natal is one long tragedy. 
Retief and his company of 200 Boers visited Dingaan's 
kraal on the 3rd February 183S, and were inconti- 
nently massacred. The women and children and the 
rest of the party were scattered at various points in 



TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS 175 

the Tugela valley, and thither the Zulu regiments of 
the Black Shields and the White Shields hastened to 
complete the slaughter. Whole families were butchered 
and few indeed were the survivors. The district is 
still known as Weenen, the " place of weeping," so 
called by the Boers in memory of a hideous tragedy. 

But Dingaan had found an enemy far tougher in 
fibre than the Kafir chieftains he had subdued. There 
were other Boer leaders, who would not rest till they 
had avenged their countrymen. Two of these, Hen- 
drik Potgeiter and Pieter Uys, who had just defeated 
Mosilikatse, at once crossed the Drakensberg. The 
first affair was disastrous, for tl^ey were badly beaten. 
Then the English from Durban attempted a diversion, 
but they too were defeated by Panda, half-brother 
to Dingaan, on the Tugela. It looked as if the British 
settlement was at the mercy of the conqueror, and 
presently the Zulus were in Durban, looting and de- 
stroying, while the settlers had retired to a brig in the 
bay. They were safe there, however, for every Zulu 
has a horror of water. 

But an avenger was on his way. This was Andries 
Pretorius, a man of a grim and patient valour, like 
some Old Testament hero. He raised a new Boer 
commaaido, and in November 1838, with 400 men, 



176 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

crossed the Tugela. The Boers held a solemn religious 
service, and vowed that if the Lord gave them victory 
they would keep the day of it sacred as a Sabbath in 
each year. On the 15th December celebrated ever 
since by the South African Dutch as Dingaan's Day 
Pretorius met the Zulu impis on the banks of the 
Blood River. The 400 disciplined men, all first-class 
shots, utterly defeated the black army of many thou- 
sands ; and when victory was won they showed little 
mercy to an enemy whom they regarded as accursed 
of heaven. Among the Boers only three were wounded, 
while the victors counted over 3,000 Zulu dead. 
Dingaan fled into the eastern hills, and Pretorius, 
marching upon the royal kraal, buried the remains 
of Retief and his companions, which he found bleach- 
ing in the sun. 

Natal, except for the British settlement on the 
coast, was now effectively occupied by the Boer emi- 
grants. This raised an awkward problem for Britain 
and the Cape Colony Government. Under English 
law a subject of the Crown cannot, by adventuring 
in the waste places of the earth, acquire sovereignty 
for himself, but only for his king. The British Govern- 
ment, therefore, could not acknowledge the indepen- 
dent republic which Pretorius and his Mends had set 



TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS 177 

tip in Natal, and they could not admit that the Boer 
emigrants, by leaving British territory, had thereby 
thrown off British allegiance. They therefore re- 
solved to send a small expedition to take possession 
of Durban and restore order in the country. 

In December 1838, Major Charters, with a company 
of the 72nd Highlanders and three guns, landed there 
and erected a fort on the Point. While, therefore, 
Pretorius was breaking Dingaan on the Blood River, 
the British flag was being hoisted at Durban. Pres- 
ently Major Charters withdrew, leaving only a smaE 
body of troops behind Mm, under Captain Jervis. 
Jervis was an honest man who earnestly desired to 
arrange a peace between the Zulus and the Boers, 
This, however, was soon seen to be impossible. Thd 
Boer regarded the Zulu as the Israelite regarded the 
Canaanite, an enemy whom it was his religious duty 
to extirpate. The British Government withdrew the 
handful of troops i and no sooner had they gone 
than the Boers hoisted their own flag on the British 
flagstaff and proclaimed the Republic of Natalia* 

After that the doings of Pretorius and his men 
became less creditable. Dingaan was unquestionably 
a brutal and treacherous scoundrel; but the Boers 
used his own methods against him when they drove 



178 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

him out of the country to exile and death and set up 
his half-brother Panda in his stead. The truth is 
that, while many of the leaders of the Great Trek were 
men of the highest character, a number of common 
brigands and adventurers made up the tail of the 
expeditions. The new republic marched from con- 
fidence to confidence, and in its relations with Britain 
showed an arrogance not unnatural perhaps in those 
who had fought so stubborn a battle. 

Presently came a crisis. Some of the Kafir tribes 
whom Tchaka and Dingaan had expelled began to 
drift back to Natal, and the Boers, denying all right 
in the land to its former masters, resolved to settle 
them in a district south of the Natal border, in what 
is now the province of Pondoland. There lived a 
chief called Faku, who, to his surprise, was suddenly 
attacked by a Boer commando and lost 150 of his 
men and 3,000 of his cattle. He complained to the 
Wesleyan missionaries who had settled under his pro- 
tection, and they forwarded a complaint to the Gov- 
ernment of Cape Colony, The situation had become 
serious, for it looked as if the Boers in Natal were about 
to set a spark to the powder magazine of Kaffraria, 
the dangers of which Cape Colony knew only too welL 
Accordingly a small British force of 250 men, under 



TWO AFBICAN JOURNEYS 179 

Captain Smith, was ordered to march to Durban. He 
arrived in Natal in March 1842, and without inter- 
ference took possession of the fort on the Point and 
pitched his camp outside the town about half a mile 
from the sea. 

Pretorius and his men instantly challenged his 
authority, and presently the little force was besieged. 
Captain Smith resolved to make a night attack on the 
Boer headquarters ; but the English regulars proved 
less adroit than the Boer sharpshooters and were 
driven back with considerable losses. A short truce 
was arranged to bury the dead ; and it became very 
clear that unless relief came at once the British would 
soon be driven into the sea. 

The difficulty was to get news of the situation to 
the British authorities* It was impossible to send 
by water, and 600 miles of savage country lay between 
Durban and the first Cape Colony settlement of Gra- 
hamstown. That country was Kaffraria, full of angry 
native tribes, bitterly hostile to the Boers, and for the 
most part scarcely less hostile to the British. More- 
over, the Boer lines lay around the town, and it might 
be no easy task to pass them. But Grahamstown 
was the only hope, and volunteers were asked for 
to make the perilous journey. Dick Bang, the man 



180 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

wliom we have seen as Captain Gardiner's wagoner, 
responded. He was a man of wiry physique, sound 
veldcraft, and above all he had mixed much with 
the Kafirs and knew most of their tongues. Two 
of the best troop horses in Captain Smith's force were 
selected, and in the evening were rowed across Durban 
Bay. 

Such is the sequence of events which led to Dick 
King's great ride. When he was ferried over the 
twilit waters of the bay he was engaged on an errand 
even more fateful than he thought. He believed that 
he was only doing a brave man's part in getting help 
for sorely tried comrades ; but in truth he was settling 
the fate of the colony of Natal. The British Govern- 
ment at home were averse to any expansion of territory, 
and above all averse to becoming involved in a war. 
Had the stockade at Durban fallen, in all likelihood 
they would have done nothing further, but made 
terms with Pretorius and recognized his republic. 
That would have meant that Natal would have de- 
veloped as a Dutch state instead of being the most 
purely English colony in South Africa. The fate of 
the little country was involved in one man's ride. 

Bang's task seemed in the last degree impossible. 
There was no chance of getting fresh mounts, so he 



TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS 181 

must ride each horse in turn and lead the other, and 
somehow nurse the two beasts over 600 miles. The 
country was for the most part grassy down-land, 
broken by rocky ridges and furrowed by deep rivers 
descending from the Drakensberg. Over these rivers 
there were no bridges and few fords. There were no 
roads, only native tracks. All the tribes were sus- 
picious and most of them hostile. Above all there was 
desperate need for haste, and a man in a hurry must 
go blindly. He has no time to make wide circuits 
and take proper precautions for secrecy. 

Before daybreak King had crossed the Umkomangi 
River and was well started, For food he had to trust 
to mealie-pap at Kafir kraals, and that meant he must 
keep on the good side of the different tribes he met. 
Two advantages he had his complete knowledge of 
their speech, and the fact that scattered among them 
were various Wesleyan missionaries who might be 
trusted to befriend him. He was also on the side 
which, on the whole, they favoured, for memories 
of Pretorius's raid on Faku were still bitter in the 
countryside. Probably no living man but he could 
have made the journey, and as it fell out he had little 
trouble with the Kafirs. The Amabaka tribe did, 
indeed, take Mm prisoner under the belief that he was 



182 ESCAPES AND HUBRIED JOURNEYS 

a Boer ; but when they found that he was British they 
at once released him. 

His main difficulties were the pathless country and 
the great distance. Wild animals, which have now 
been driven into the far north, were then as thick 
in the countryside as they are to-day in a game pre- 
serve. Elephants roamed in the patches of forest ; 
there were lions in every thicket ; and the African 
buffalo, almost the most dangerous of African beasts, 
filled the river marshes. To an old hunter, however, 
wild beasts are the least of perils in the bush, for they 
will rarely attack one who appears to have no hostile 
purpose. But the rivers were full with the rains from 
the hills, and he had to swim them from bank to bank. 
Also it was no light task, even for an old hunter, to 
find his way in a pathless land, where a false turn 
might lead him into impenetrable marshes or jungles 
where every yard had to be fought for. 

Poor food and excessive fatigue soon began to tell 
upon his strength. In a ride against time a man's 
nerves are highly strung, and this adds greatly to the 
physical burden. About the third day he began to 
suffer from chill and fever, and the wait-a-bit thorns 
and prickly-pear scrub began to dance before his eyes. 
Every one who has ridden through the African bush 



TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS 183 

with fever on Mm knows the misery of the experience 
the blinding headache, the unbearable thirst, the 
shivering fits which make it difficult to keep in the 
saddle. King forced his body to its utmost limits ; 
but he was compelled every now and then to He down 
and rest. One or two missionaries whom he encoun- 
tered doctored him as best they could ; but altogether 
the better part of two days was wasted in bouts of 
illness. 

Nevertheless the iron spirit of the man prevailed. 
Allowing for the delays caused by illness, he and Ms 
two horses did an average of not less than eighty 
miles a day. On the ninth day after leaving Durban 
he stumbled into the little settlement of Grahamstown, 
half blind with fatigue and fever, but able to give the 
message wMch was to save his comrades. 

Colonel Hare, lieutenant-Governor of the Eastern 
Province, was not a man to waste time. He at once 
ordered the Grenadier company of the 27th Regiment 
to proceed from Port Elizabeth to Durban, and Sir 
George Napier immediately afterwards sent the 25th 
Regiment from the Cape. Exactly one month from 
King's start a British sMp carrying reinforcements 
sailed into Durban Bay and found the British flag still 
flying, BIck King's wild ride had not been in vain. 



184 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

n 

In March 1896 a grave native rebellion broke out 
in Matabeleland, the south-western portion of the 
then new colony of Rhodesia. A rebellion of some 
sort was almost inevitable. Though their chief, 
Lobengula, had been defeated, the Matabele people 
had never been really conquered ; and as white civili- 
zation and white settlement began to spread through- 
out the country it was certain that a warlike race 
would not accept the overthrow of their old life 
without a further struggle. Three months later the 
rebellion spread to the north-western province of 
Mashonaland, and there the number of independent 
and isolated tribes made the task of suppression more 
difficult. The chief town of Mashonaland is Salis- 
bury, but scattered in the country round were a number 
of embryo townships connected by precarious roads. 
Everywhere there was a large native population, 
and the white residents were separated by many miles 
of difficult country from their fellows. 

The first threat of trouble in Mashonaland began 
in the Hartley Hill district to the south-west of Salis- 
bury. As always happens with native risings, it 
spread rapidly to districts hundreds of miles distant. 







He and Ms two horses did an average of not less than 
eighty miles a day. 



TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS 185 

About 14th June Salisbury was thoroughly alarmed, 
and provision was made for its defence. It was an 
extremely scattered town, and the outlying houses 
had to be relinquished and the whole population 
brought into a central laager. On the night of the 
18th the homestead of the Yicomtesse de la Panouse, 
two miles from the town, was visited by a party of 
rebels. The Vicomtesse only escaped by hiding in 
the grass and creeping into Salisbury under cover of 
night. 

Our story begins a week later, on the highroad which 
ran from Salisbury to TTmtali on the Portuguese border. 
Along this road were various stores and settlements, 
the chief being at a place called Marandellas, some 
forty or fifty miles down the road. On the morning 
of 16th June Miss Carter, a Salisbury lady, left Salis- 
bury for Umtali in a passenger wagon, accompanied 
by Mr. Lamb, three other white men, two natives, and 
a Cape driver. On the 18th the down coach for Um- 
tali passed them, but the driver had no news to give 
them of the troubles which were then beginning on 
the other side of Salisbury. 

When they reached Marandellas they found the 
Vicomte de la Panouse with a party and a large 
wagon laden with stores. They also received a 



186 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

note from the station of Headlands, some twenty 
miles on, urging them to return to Salisbury as 
the Mashonas were everywhere rising. At first they 
were inclined to disregard the warning. But they 
returned to Marandellas, where they received an- 
other message begging them to waste no time in 
getting back. Again they hesitated, for Marandellas 
seemed a very safe retreat, since it held a large supply 
of ammunition. Discretion, however, prevailed, and 
they moved out on the Salisbury road, where they 
overtook the Vicomte de la Panouse and his party. 
It was resolved that they would travel back together, 
for the Vicomte had with him three white men, and 
there was also an ox-wagon with several attendants 
anxious to join in the convoy. 

The Vicomte's wagon, which was drawn by don- 
keys and was very heavily laden, moved slowly, and 
it was not till the afternoon of the following day that 
it reached the store of Messrs. Graham and White. 
Here they realized for the first time their imminent 
danger. AH the native boys had gone, and one who 
had crawled through to warn Mr. Graham had had a 
hard fight and was badly wounded. The party made 
a laager round the store, and the night passed peace- 
fully. Next morning they begged Mr. Graham to 



TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS 187 

accompany them to Salisbury. He refused, however, 
believing that he was quite able to hold the place. 
The following day he was attacked and murdered as 
he was escaping into the veld. 

That Monday morning, after leaving Sir, Graham's 
store, the sentry whom they had placed on the top of 
Mr. Lamb's wagon, pointed out several black forms 
in the distance. The wagons moved peacefully along 
for some six miles, and then outspanned for the mid- 
day rest. By this time their field-glasses showed the 
party large numbers of natives massing, all of whom 
seemed to be armed. After that the wagons kept 
close together. When they had gone another mile 
they came upon a horrible sight. Lying in the road 
were three mutilated bodies, which proved to be 
those of a store-keeper, Mr. Weyer, his wife, and Ms 
child ; a little farther on lay the body of another 
child hideously maltreated. As the twilight was ap- 
proaching there was no time to bury the dead, and 
all that could be done was to place the poor remains 
together and to cover them with sand and some 
branches of trees. The bodies were all in sleeping gar- 
ments, so it seemed that they had been murdered 
during the past night when trying to escape. 

This grim sight, seen in the bright South African 



188 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

twilight, brought awe into the hearts of the little band. 
Darkness was falling ; all round them was the thick 
bushveld. The Vicomte's wagon was heavily laden 
and could only move slowly, and all the animals were 
tired. The Vicomte lightened Ms load by flinging 
away some of his goods, and they had barely resumed 
their journey, when, looking back, they saw a large 
body of natives carrying off the abandoned flour. Mr. 
Lamb climbed to the top of his wagon and had the 
satisfaction of seeing one fall to his rifle. The enemy 
returned the fire, wounding one of the donkeys. 

It was now fairly clear that unless they could move 
faster the whole convoy was doomed, so it became 
necessary to jettison the whole wagon load. The 
Vicomte did this unwillingly, but there was no other 
course. His donkeys were unharnessed and driven on 
in front ; the other wagon was also left derelict., and 
the oxen from it inspanned in front of Mr. Lamb's 
donkeys. Behind them they could hear loud shouts 
as the rebels looted the discarded wagons. 

Suddenly fire was opened upon them from the bushes 
on the right hand, and a brisk exchange of shots took 
place. It was now very dark, and as they crawled 
along the road a perpetual fusillade was kept up. 
Happily they had several good dogs with them, who 



TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS 189 

were sent into the roadside bush and so gave early 
notice of an ambuscade. Presently the enemy fire 
died away ; the moon came out, and at a better pace 
the convoy reached Law's Store. 

It was now about 11 p.m. They found the place 
deserted and looted ; but it was possible to make of 
it some kind of protection for the night. A few outer 
huts were burnt in order to give a field of fire ; the 
animals were secured in a laager, and the party took 
refuge in one of the rooms* Pickets were posted, three 
at a time in two watches. The Cape boys lit fires 
before and behind the house, which were a comfort to 
the pickets, for the night had the bitter cold of a 
Rhodesian winter. 

At 2 a.m. nest morning a Cape boy, badly wounded, 
crawled up. He had escaped from a neighbouring 
farm, and had been fighting since 6 a.m. the previous 
morning. At 4 a.m. all the men of the party went on 
guard till daybreak. As soon as the first light ap- 
peared the convoy started, and they had not gone a 
mile, when, looking back, they saw a huge cloud of 
smoke ascending from Law's Store. The rebels had 
closed in behind them and burned the place. 

All morning they crept along the road, being fired 
afc from every patch, of bush. One shot passed be- 



190 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

tween the Vicomte and Mr. Lamb, killing a dog as it 
talked between them ; another passed through the 
side of the passenger wagon in front of Miss Carter, 
and then below the armpit of one of the Cape boys. 
These Cape boys, let it be said, showed throughout 
this adventure, and throughout the whole rebellion, 
the utmost courage and fidelity. 

No one of the party believed at this time that they 
would ever arrive at Salisbury. The next station on 
the road was a place called Ballyhooley, and just 
before reaching it they had a serious fight, where one 
of the Cape boys managed to shoot the rebel leader. 
Ballyhooley they found deserted and looted. There 
they had hoped to meet relief parties from Salisbury ; 
but none were there, and the passenger wagon, drawn 
by its donkeys and oxen, crawled on again, the men 
tramping alongside in the dust. At every turn of the 
road, and in every patch of scrub they feared to meet 
their fate. 

They were now only three miles from the town, 
when to their horror they saw a large number of rebels 
massed together. For a little they had a terrible fear 
that Salisbury might have fallen. But fatigue and 
anxiety had by now dulled their senses, and they had 
mercifully ceased to realize their peril. They stopped 



TWO AFRICAN JOURNEYS 191 

for a little to allow the Cape boys to detach the oxen 
from the wagon, so that they might be turned loose, 
and while they did so a crowd of natives swarmed on 
the kopjes above them. Then they moved on, and as 
they emerged from the hilla they came in sight of 
Salisbury, which seemed to be a town of the dead. 

But suddenly in the middle distance they observed 
three or four mounted men galloping towards them. 
They saw that they were friends, and presently they 
realized that the defences of Salisbury were still intact, 
and that at last they had found sanctuary. 

The little party had come out of the very jaws of 
death. Behind and around them for three days had 
been the enemy, flushed with success, confident that 
the days of the white man in the land were numbered ; 
every little storehouse and farmstead was in ruins, 
every inn was a heap of charred timbers and burned 
stores and broken bottles. They had to move at the 
slow pace set by tired oxen and donkeys. The odds 
were all against them when they left MarandeUas, and 
they won through only by -virtue of that tenacity of 
t pint which obstinately refuses to despair. 



vn 

THE GREAT MONTROSE 



THE GREAT MONTROSE 

THE story of the paladin of Scottish history, the man 
whom Cardinal de Retz thought equal to any of the 
heroes of antiquity, is scarcely to be equalled for 
swift drama in the records of any land. James Graham, 
the first Marquis of Montrose, began his marvellous 
career at the age of thirty-two, and crowded into two 
years the campaigns which made him master of Scot- 
land. He died on the scaffold when he was only 
thirty-eight, leaving behind bin) the reputation of 
perhaps the greatest soldier ever born north of the 
Tweed, and certainly one of the purest and most chival- 
rous figures in his country's annals. Few men have 
ever covered country with his lightning speed, and the 
whole tale of his exploits is a tale of escapes and hurried 
journeys, I propose to tell of two episodes in Ms 
short career, but I would add that they are no more 
stirring than a dozen others. 



196 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 



In 1643 the English Civil War began. Sir John 
Hotham shut the gates of Hull in the King's face. On 
the 22nd of August Charles raised the Royal Standard 
at Nottingham, and on 22nd October was fought the 
Battle of Edgehill. Montrose had originally been a 
Covenanter that is, he had signed the National 
Covenant which protested against the imposition of 
a foreign church system on Scotland. He commanded 
an army in the first Covenant War, but as time went 
on he began to see that more was involved in the 
struggle than the question of liturgies. He realized 
that the Church in Scotland was beginning to make 
claims which meant the complete abolition of civil 
government. He therefore drew towards the King's 
side, and there began that antagonism with the Mar- 
quis of ArgyE which was inevitable between two men 
with such different temperaments and creeds. 

In the early winter of 1643 he joined the King's 
court at Oxford, and proposed to Charles "to raise 
Scotland " on his behalf. It looked a crazy proposal, 
for even then the Scottish army was over the Border 
in arms against the King, and the Covenant held 
every city north of Tweed. The few loyalists who 



THE GREAT MONTROSE 197 

still stood out were mostly vain nobles who had some 
personal quarrel with the other side. But such was 
the ardour of the young Montrose that he Impressed 
the King and his graver councillors lite Hyde and 
Endymion Porter. He asked for little help. Lord 
Antrim was to raise troops in Ireland and land in the 
west of Scotland to keep Argyll occupied in his own 
country. Montrose himself hoped to borrow a body 
of horse from Newcastle's army in the north to help 
him to cut his way through the Lowlands to the High- 
land line. Charles consented, and Antrim was sent 
to Ulster, with instructions to land 2,000 troops in 
Argyll by April 1, 1644. Montrose was made lieutenant- 
general of the King's forces in Scotland, and on a March 
morning in 1644 he left Oxford by the north road to 
win a kingdom for his master. 

When St. Theresa, as a child, set out to convert 
the Moors, she was engaged in an adventure scarcely 
less hopeful than that which Montrose had now set 
himself. Where was he to find troops ? The best 
of the old professional soldiers were with Leven. He 
could get nothing in the Scottish Lowlands, for on 
them the Kirk had laid an iron hand. The nobles 
and the gentry were jealous and self-centred. An- 
trim's Ulstermen would do more harm than good; 



198 ESCAPES AOT) HURRIED JOURNEYS 

for though most of them were Scots and Mac- 
donalds, they were Catholics and would drive every 
Presbyterian to the other side. There was no solid 
hope anywhere save in the soul of the adventurer. 
He flung himself into a hostile country without a 
base, without troops, without munitions, in the 
hope that his fiery spirit would create armies out of 
nothing. 

He reached Newcastle's camp safely and found 
that things there were going badly. Newcastle could 
only offer him 100 ill-mounted troopers and two brass 
cannon a poor outfit for the conquest of Scotland. 
He managed to raise some of the northern militia and 
a band of local gentlemen, and with 1,300 men he 
crossed the Border in April and took Dumfries. There, 
however, he could not stay. The gentry of Nithsdale 
and Annandale would not stir, and he was compelled 
to return to England, where he found that Newcastle 
had flung himself into York and was closely beset by 
Leven, Fairfax, and Manchester. With a handful of 
men he captured Morpeth, and presently he received 
a summons from Prince Rupert, who was then marching 
through Lancashire to the relief of York. He set 
off to join him, but before they met the King's cause 
had suffered its first disaster. Rupert indeed relieved 



THE GREAT MONTROSE 199 

York, but on the 2nd July about five in the afternoon 
lie met the Parliamentary forces on Marston Moor 
and discovered that new thing in England the shock 
of Cromwell's horse. His army was scattered ; New- 
castle fled overseas ; and he himself, with some 6,000 
troops, rode westward into Wales. Two days after 
the battle Montrose found him in an inn at Richmond, 
in Yorkshire ; but Rupert had nothing to give. On 
the contrary, he stood much in need of Montrose's 
scanty recruits. So with a sad heart Montrose rode 
by Brough and Appleby to Carlisle, to write his report 
of failure to the King. 

Four months had passed and nothing had been 
achieved. The news from Scotland was the worst 
conceivable. The land lay quiet under the Covenant, 
and Antrim's levies seemed to have vanished into the 
air. The nobles were tumbling over each other in 
their anxiety to swear fealty to Argyll. There seemed 
nothing to be done except to surrender the royal com- 
mission and go abroad to wait for happier times. So 
his friends advised, and Montrose made a pretence of 
acquiescing. He set out for the south with his friends, 
but a mile out of Carlisle he slipped behind, and, as his 
servants and baggage went on, it was presumed that 
lie was following. It was as well that he stopped, 



200 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

for the rest of the party were captured by Fairfax at 
Ribble Bridge. 

He had resolved on the craziest of adventures. He 
would break through the Covenanting cordon in the 
Lowlands and win to his own country of Perthshire, 
where lived his kinsmen. There, at any rate, were 
loyal hearts, and something might be devised to turn 
the tide. He chose as his companions Sir William 
Rollo, who was lame, and Colonel Sibbald, who had 
served under him before. These two wore the dress 
of Leven's troopers, while Montrose followed behind 
as their groom, riding one ill-conditioned horse and 
leading another. 

It was a dangerous road to travel. The country 
was strewn with broken men and patrolled by Cove- 
nanting dragoons, and a gentleman in those days was 
not so easily disguised. At first all went smoothly. 
The disreputable clan of the Grahams held the lower 
Esk, and as the three rode through the woods of Neth- 
erby they learned that its chief. Sir Richard Graham, 
had joined the Covenant and appointed himself Warden 
of the Marches. This they had from one of his ser- 
vants, who spoke freely to them as to Leven's troopers. 
A little farther on they fell in with a Scot, one of 
Newcastle's soldiers, who, to their consternation, dis- 



THE GEEAT MONTROSE 201 

regarded Rollo and Sibbald, but paid great attention 
to the groom and hailed him by Ms proper title. Mon- 
trose tried to deny it ; but the man exclaimed, " What ! 
do I not know my Lord Marquis of Montrose well 
enough ? Go your way and God be with you." A 
gold piece rewarded the untimely well-wisher. 

The journey grew daily more anxious till the Forth 
was passed. " It may be thought," says Patrick 
Gordon, a Royalist historian, " that God Almighty 
sent His good angel to lead the way, for he went, as if 
a cloud had environed him, through all his enemies." 
We do not know the exact route they travelled, whether 
by Annandale and then by Tweed or Clyde, or up 
Eskdale and thence over the Tweedside range to the 
Lothians. Probably they went by the former and 
followed the belt of moorland which runs north, 
by Carnwath almost to the Highland hills. From 
Carlisle to Perth is a hundred miles, and the party 
rode by day and night, keeping, we may suppose, 
away from towns and villages and frequented parts 
of the highway. 

On the fourth day they came to the Montrose lands 
in Stirling and Strathearn, but they did not draw rein 
till they reached the house of Tullibelton between 
Perth and Dunkeld. Here lived Patrick Graham of 



202 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Inchbrakie, one of the best loved of all Montrose's kin, 
and here at any rate was safe shelter for the traveller 
while he spied out the land and looked about for an 
army. 

So the curtain rises, and the first act of the great 
drama reveals a forlorn little party late on an August 
evening knocking at the door of a woodland tower 
about the shining reaches of Tay. The Bong's lieu- 
tenant-general makes a very modest entry on the 
scene. Two followers, four sorry screws, little money, 
and no baggage, seem a slender outfit for the conquest 
of a kingdom ; but in six months he was to see 
Scotland at his feet. 

For six days the royal lieutenant lay in close hiding, 
spending most of his time in the woods and hollows, 
sleeping at night in hunters' bothies. The scouts 
he had sent out returned with a melancholy tale. 
Huntly in the north had made a mess of it, and the 
Gordons were leaderless and divided. Even some of 
the Graham and Drummond kinsmen were in arms 
against the King. There were rumours of a Covenant 
army in Aberdeenshire, and Argyll in the west had 
his clan in arms. Montrose wondered at this strange 
activity. The battleground now was England, and, 



THE GREAT MONTROSE 203 

with. Scotland in so iron a grip, these elaborate military 
precautions seemed needless. 

He was soon to learn the reason. As he was one 
day in the wood of Methven, sleeping the night there, 
he fell into a great despondency of spirit. While 
he reflected upon the hopelessness of his case, he 
suddenly saw a man carrying a fiery cross and making 
for the town of Perth. He stopped him and inquired 
what the matter was. The messenger told him that 
Alastair MacDonald of Ulster, commonly called Col- 
kitto (a corruption of the Gaelic word meaning " Coll 
who can fight with either hand "), had come into Atholl 
with a great army of Irish. At last Antrim's levies 
had come out of the mist. Presently Montrose had 
a letter from Alastair MacDonald himself, directed 
to him at Carlisle, announcing his arrival and asking 
for instructions. 

If Montrose needed help, no less did the Irish com- 
mander. He had landed in July in Ardnamurchan, 
on the west coast, and proceeded to ravage the Camp- 
bell lands. His ships were all destroyed, so he re- 
solved, being in a desperate situation, to march across 
Scotland and join the Gordons. But in Lochaber he 
heard that the Gordons had made their peace with the 
Covenant, and the other northern clans, like the Mac- 



204 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

kenzies, nad no love for Alastair's tartan and would 
have nothing to do with him. Headed back on all 
sides, Alastair decided that the holdest course was the 
safest. He marched to the head-waters of the Spey 
and issued a summons calling on the clans to rise in 
the names of the King and Huntly. This brought 
him 500 recruits, most of them Gordons; but the 
other clans refused and blocked the road down the 

Spey. 

He now seemed in a fair way to be exterminated. 
The Campbells intercepted his retreat to the sea, and 
Argyll was hot-foot on his track. The Mackenzies 
cut Mm off from the north and east, his new levies 
were mutinous and distrustful, and south lay the 
unfriendly Lowlands and clans like the Stewarts of 
Atholl, who would never serve under any leader of 
an alien name. He had proved that, whoever might 
band the Highlands into an army, it would not be a 
man of Highland blood. Hence his despairing letter 
to the lieutenant-general asking for instructions and 
help. He can scarcely have hoped for much from his 
appeal, for Carlisle was a long way from Badenoch 
and he had the enemy on every side. 

Montrose sent an answer, bidding Alastair be of 
good heart and await him at Blair. The latter obeyed 



THE GREAT MONTROSE 205 

and marched into Atholl, but the local clans resented 
his appearance. The fiery cross was sent round, and 
there seemed every chance of a desperate conflict 
between two forces who alike detested the Covenant 
and followed the King. 

The situation was saved by a hairbreadth. Mon- 
trose, accompanied by Patrick Graham the younger 
of Inchbrakie Black Pate, as the countryside called 
him set off on foot over the "Mils to keep the tryst. 
He had acquired from Inchbrakie a Highland dress 
the trews, a short coat, and a plaid round his shoulders. 
He wore, we are told, a blue bonnet with a bunch of 
oats as a badge, and he carried a broadsword and a 
Highland buckler. Thus accoutred he entered upoa 
the scene in the true manner of romance, unlooked- 
for and invincible. 

Alastair and his ragged troops were waiting hourly 
on battle, when across the moor they saw two figures 
advancing. Black Pate was known to every Atholl 
man, and there were many who had seen Montrose. 
Loud shouts of welcome apprised the Ulsterman that 
here was no bonnet laird, but when he heard that it 
was indeed the "King's lieutenant he could scarcely 
believe his ears. He had looked for cavalry, an 
imposing bodyguard, and a figure more like Ms own 



206 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

swashbuckling self than this slim young man with the 
quiet face and searching grey eyes. 

In a moment all quarrels were forgotten. Mon- 
trose produced his commission and Alastair promptly 
took service under him, thankful to be out of a plight 
which for weeks had looked hopeless. The AthoU 
Highlanders were carried off their feet by the grace 
and fire of their new leader, and 800 of them brought 
to his side those broadswords which that morning 
had been dedicated to cutting Ulster throats. Next 
morning the Royal Standard was unfurled on a green 
knoll above the river Tilt. The King's lieutenant had 
got Mm an army. 

n 

I pass over the next two months. On the 1st Sep- 
tember, with his ill-assorted forces, he met the Cove- 
nant army under Lord Elcho at Tippermuir, near 
Perth, and scattered it to the winds. Then he marched 
to Aberdeen, and on the 13th of that month soundly 
defeated another army under Lord Balfour of Bur- 
leigh. Thereafter his difficulties increased. He found 
that Ms Lowland gentlemen began to slip away, for 
they had no love for a mid- winter campaign conducted 
at Montrose's incredible pace. Moreover, Alastair 



THE GREAT MONTROSE 207 

went off on an expedition of Ms own to the west, and 
the rest of the Highlanders had private grievances, 
the avenging of which they thought of far greater 
moment than any royal necessities. 

The end of November came ; the heavy rains in 
the glens told of the beginning of winter, and the hill** 
were whitened with snow. Argyll was at Dunkeld, 
and for a moment the campaign languished. Then 
one morning at Blair, Alastair's pipes announced Ms 
return, bringing with him the rest of Ms Ulstermen 
and a considerable levy of the western clans Mac- 
Donalds of Glengarry, Keppoch, and Ganranald, 
Macleans from Morvern and Mull, Stewarts from 
Appin, and Camerons from Lochaber. The clans 
had only one object, to take order with Argyll, for 
they hated the house of Diarmaid far more than the 
Covenant. Now was the time to avenge ancient 
wrongs and to break the pride of a cMef who had 
boasted that no mortal enemy could enter his country. 
The hour had come when the fray must be carried to 
Lorn. 

Montrose had that supreme virtue in a commander 
wMch recognizes facts. He could not maintain his 
army without wtx, and Lowland war they would not 
as yet listen to. If he looked to their help in the 



208 ESCAPES AJOTD HUEEIED JOURNEYS 

future he must whet their valour and rivet their 
loyalty by fresh successes. In return for their assist- 
ance in the King's quarrel they must have the help 
of the King's lieutenant in their own. Besides, the 
plan could be justified on other grounds of strategy 
and politics. A blow at the Campbells in their own 
country would shatter Argyll's not too robust nerve, 
and put fear into the heart of the Covenant. 

But it was the wildest of wild adventures. Clan 
Campbell was the largest, most prosperous, and most 
civilized of all the Highland peoples. Indeed, they 
formed almost a separate state, and it was not with- 
out reason that Argyll had boasted that his land was 
impregnable. Strategically it had every advantage. 
On the eastern side, where it looked to the Lowlands, 
there were the castles of Eoseneath and Duhoon to 
keep watch, and deep sea lochs to hinder the invader. 
South and west lay the sea, and the Campbells had 
what little navy existed in Scotland at the time. North 
* lay a land of high mountains and difficult passes, where 
no man could travel save by permission of the sovereign 
lord. Moreover, the Campbells of Lochow and Glen- 
orchy had flung their tentacles over Breadalbane and 
held the glens around the head waters of Tay. There 
might be a raid of Macgregors or Maclarens on the 




Across the moor tney saw two figures advancing. 



THE GREAT MONTROSE 209 

east, or a foray from Appin on Loch Etiye side but 
it seemed that not even the King and his am 
could get much beyond the gates. " It is a fai cr, 
to Lochow," so ran the Campbell watchword, and it> 
was a farther cry to Inveraray. 

When Montrose assented to Alastair's wishes he 
resolved to strike straight at the enemy's heart. He 
would wage war not on the outskirts but in the citadel. 
Through Breadalbane ran a possible route among wild 
glens and trackless bogs, which at this winter season 
would be deep in snow. This was the old raiding road 
out of Lorn, and Argyll flattered himself that his clan 
alone had the keys of it. But with Montrose were men 
who had made many a midnight foray into the Camp- 
bell country, and who knew every corrie and scaur 
as well as any son of Diarmaid. A Glencoe man, 
Angus MacAlain Dubh, is named by tradition as the 
chief guide, and he promised Montrose that his army 
could live well on the country, " if tight houses, fat 
cattle, and clear water will suffice." 

From Blair, past the shores of Loch Tay swept the 
advance till the confines of Breadalbane were reached 
and a country that owned Campbell sway. Up Glen 
Dochart they went, following much the same road 
as the present railway line to Oban, past Crianlarich 



210 ESCAPES AND HUEEIED JOURNEYS 

and Tyndrum, and into the glens of Orchy. It was 
a raid of vengeance, and behind them rose the flames 
of burning roof-trees. Presently Loch Awe lay before 
them under a leaden winter sky, and soon the little 
peels of the lochside lairds smoked to heaven. It 
was a cruel business, save that the women and children 
were spared. All fighting men were slain or driven 
to the high hills, every cot and clachan was set alight, 
and rows of maddened cattle attested the richness of 
the land and the profit of the invaders. It was High- 
land warfare of the old barbarous type, no worse and 
no better than that which Argyll had already carried 
to Lochaber and Badenoch and the Braes of Angus. 

Argyll was well served by Ms scouts, and to him at 
Edinburgh word was soon brought of Montrose's march 
to Breadalbane. He must have thought it a crazy 
venture ; now at last was his enemy delivered into 
his hands. No human army could cross the winter 
passes even if it had the key ; and the men of 
Glenorchy would wipe out the starving remnants at 
their leisure. Full of confidence he posted across 
Scotland to Inveraray. There he found that all was 
quiet. Eumours of a foray in Lorn were indeed rife, 
but the burghers of Inveraray, strong in their genera- 
tions of peace, had no fear for themselves. Argyll 



THE GREAT MONTROSE 211 

saw to the defences of the castle, and called a great 
gathering of the neighbouring clansmen to provide 
reinforcements, if such should be needed, for the Glen- 
orchy and Breadalbane men, who by this time had 
assuredly made an end of Montrose. 

Suddenly came a thunderbolt. Wild-eyed shep- 
herds rushed into the streets with the cry that the 
MacDonalds were upon them. Quickly the tale flew. 
Montrose was not in Breadalbane or on the fringes of 
Lorn. He was at Loch Awe nay, he was in the heart 
of Argyll itself. The chief waited no longer. He 
found a fishing boat, and, the wind being right, fled 
down Loch Fyne to the shelter of his castle at Rose- 
neath. The same breeze that filled his sails brought 
the sound of Alastair's pipes, and he was scarcely 
under weigh ere the van of the invaders came down 
Glen Shira. 

Then began the harrying of Clan Campbell. Leader- 
less and unprepared, they made no resistance to Mon- 
trose's army of flushed and battle-worn warriors. 
Macleans and MacDonalds, Stewarts and Camerons, 
satiated their ancient grudges with the plunder of 
Inveraray. The kerns thawed their half -frozen limbs 
at the warmth of blazing steadings, and appeased 
their ravenous hunger at the expense of the bakers 



212 ESCAPES AND HUEEIED JOURNEYS 

and vintners and fleshers of the burgh. Never had 
the broken men of Lochaber and the Isles fared sc 
nobly. For some happy weeks they ran riot in what 
for them was a land of milk and honey, while the 
townsmen, crouching in cellars and thicket s, or safe 
behind the castle gates, wondered how long it would be 
before their chief returned to avenge them. There 
seems to have been no special barbarity about the 
business. Here and there a refractory Campbell was 
dirked, but Alastair's men preferred victual and cattle 
to human blood. 

Meantime word had gone from the exile at Bose- 
neath to the Government in Edinburgh. It was for 
Argyll to avenge the shame of his clan, and he presently 
received 1,100 of the flower of the Scottish militia. 
His kinsman, Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinbreck, 
was summoned back from Ireland. Seaforth wa 
waiting with a northern army at Inverness, and 
the Scottish commander-in-chief, William Baillie of 
Letham, was at Perth. It looked as if Montrose had 
walked into a certain trap. He would be caught be* 
tween Argyll and Seaforth, and if he tried to escape 
to the right Baillie would await him. It seemed the 
certainty on which Argyll loved to gamble. 

Mid-winter that year was open and mild. Had it 



THE GREAT MOOTROSE 213 

been otherwise Clan Campbell must have been annihi- 
lated and Montrose could never have led his men 
safely out of Argyll. About the middle of January 
1645 he gave orders for the march. He had as yet 
no news of Argyll's preparations, but he must have 
realized that the avenger would not be slow on his 
track. His immediate intention was to come to an 
account with Seaforth, who not only barred him from 
the Gordon country but was responsible for the oppo- 
sition of the powerful clan of Mackenzie. He had 
guides who promised to show him an easy way out of 
Lorn into Lochaber. After that his road ran straight 
up the Great Glen to Inverness. 

Laden with miscellaneous plunder and cumbered no 
doubt with spreaghs of cattle, the Highlanders crossed 
from Loch Awe to the shore of Loch Etive. Since 
they had nothing to fear in front of them, they con- 
tinued up the steep brink of that loch to the site of 
the present house of Glen Etive. Crossing the beattach 
by the old drove-road they marched through Appin 
and up Glencoe to the neighbourhood of Corrour, for 
the shorter road by Kingshouse and the Moor of 
Rannoch was no place for a heavily laden force in 
mid- winter. From Corrour the road was that now 
taken by the West Highland Railway. Passing Loch 



214 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Treig they descended the valley of the Spean to the 
shores of Loch Lochy and the opening of the Great 
Glen. By the evening of Thursday, the 30th January, 
Montrose was at Kilcumin at the head of Loch Ness. 
Most of the Atholl men and the bulk of Clanranald 
had left him, after their custom, to deposit their booty. 
No more than 1,500 remained Alastair's Irish, a hand- 
ful of Stewarts, MacDonalds, Macleans, and Camerons, 
and sufficient cavalry to mount the Lowland gentry 
and provide an escort for the Standard. 

At Kilcumin Montrose had definite news of Seaf orth. 
He was thirty miles off at Inverness with 5,000 men 
Erasers, Mackenzies, and regulars from the Inverness 
garrison. Montrose was preparing to make short work 
of Seaforth when he received graver tidings. Ian Lorn 
MacDonald, the bard of Keppoch, arrived to tell of 
Argyll at his heels. The Campbells were only thirty 
miles behind at Inverlochy, 3,000 men-at-arms eager 
to avenge the wrongs of Lorn. They were burning 
and harrying Glen Spean and Glen Roy and the Loch- 
aber braes, and their object was to take Montrose in 
the rear what time Seaforth should hold him in the 
front. 

The plight of the little army seemed hopeless ; 1,500 
very weary men were caught between two forces of 



THE GREAT MONTEOSE 215 

3,000 and 5,000. There was no way of escape to west 
or east, for the one would lead them to a bare sea- 
coast and the other into the arms of Baillie's foot. 
Of the two hostile forces the Campbells were the more 
formidable. Montrose knew very well that the fight- 
ing spirit of Clan Diarmaid was equal to any in the 
Highlands, and now that they were commanded by a 
skilled soldier and infuriated by the burning of their 
homes, he could scarcely hope to fight them at long 
odds. But it is the duty of a good general when he 
is confronted by two immediate perils to meet the 
greater first. Montrose resolved to fight the Camp- 
bells, but to fight them in his own way. 

Early on the morning of Friday, 31st January, began 
that flank march which remains one of the great 
exploits in the history of British arms. The little 
river Tarff flows from the Monadliadh Mountains to 
Loch Ness. Up its rocky course went Montrose, and 
the royal army disappeared into the hills. Scouts of 
Argyll or Seaforth who traversed the Great Glen on 
that day must have reported no enemy. From Tarff 
Montrose crossed the pass to Glen Turritt, and, fol- 
lowing it downwards, reached Glen Roy. Pushing on 
through the night he came to the Bridge of Roy, 
where that stream enters the Spean, on the morning 



216 ESCAPES AND HUERIED JOURNEYS 

>f Saturday, 1st February. The weather had been 
bitterly cold, the upper glens were choked with snow- 
drifts, and the army had neither food nor fire. The 
road led through places where great avalanches yawned 
above the adventurers, and over passes so steep and 
narrow that a hundred men could have held an army 
at bay. As they struggled along at the pace of a 
deerstalker, Montrose walked by his men, shaming 
them to endurance by the spectacle of his own 
courage. If the reader wishes for a picture of that 
miraculous march he will find it in the words of young 
Elrigmore in Mr. Neil Munro's John Splendid : 

"It was like some hyperborean hell, and we 
the doomed wretches sentenced to our eternity of 
toil. We had to climb up the shoulder of the hi]!, 
now among tremendous rocks, now through water 
unfrozen, now upon wind-swept ice, but the snow 
the snow the heartless snow was our con- 
stant companion. It stood in walls before, it lay 
in ramparts round us, it wearied the eye to a most 
numbing pain. Unlucky were they who wore 
trews, for the same clung damply to knee and 
haunch and froze, while the stinging sleet might 
flay the naked limb till the blood rose among the 



THE GREAT MONTROSE 217 

pelt of the kilted, but the suppleness of the joint 
was unmarred. ... At the head of Glen Roy the 
MacDonalds, who had lost their bauchles of brogues 
in the pass, started to a trot, and as the necessity 
was we had to take up the pace too. Long lank 
hounds, they took the road like deer, their limbs 
purple with the cold, their faces pinched to the 
aspect of the wolf, their targets and muskets 
clattering about them. c There are Campbells to 
slay, and suppers to eat,' the major-general had 
said ; and it would have given the most spiritless 
followers the pith to run till morning across a 
strand of rock and pebble. They knew no tiring, 
they seemingly felt no pain in their torn and 
bleeding feet, but put mile after mile below them." 

From Roy bridge to Inverlochy is some thirteen 
miles, but to take Argyll in the flank a circuit was 
necessary, and Montrose followed the northern slopes 
of the wild tangle of mountains, the highest in Britain, 
that surround Ben Nevis. In the ruddy gloaming of 
the February day the vanguard saw beneath and 
before them the towers of Inverlochy, " like a scowl 
on the fringe of the wave," and not a mile off the men 
of Clan Diarmaid making ready their evening meal* 



218 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Shots were exchanged with the pickets, but no efiort 
was made to advance. Montrose waited quietly in 
the gathering dusk till by eight o'clock the rest of Ms 
famished column had arrived. There, supperless and 
cold, they passed the night, keeping up a desultory 
skirmishing with the Campbell outposts, for Montrose 
was in dread lest Argyll should try to escape. It was 
a full moon and the dark masses of both armies were 
visible to each other. Argyll thought the forces he 
saw were only a contingent of Highland raiders under 
Keppoch or some petty chief. But after his fashion 
he ran no personal risks ; so, with Ms favourite minis- 
ter and one or two Edinburgh bailies, he withdrew 
to a boat on Loch Eil. 

At dawn on Candlemas day his ears were greeted by 
an. unwelcome note. It was no bagpipe such as Kep- 
poch might use, but trumpets of war, and the salute 
they sounded was that reserved for the Royal Standard. 
The King's lieutenant, who two days ago was for 
certain at Loch Ness, had by some craft of darkness 
taken wings and flown his army over the winter hills. 
There was no alternative but to fight. Till Montrose 
was beaten the Campbells could neither march forward 
to join Seaforth nor backward to their own land. 

Auchinbreck drew up his forces with the fighting 



THE GREAT MONTROSE 219 

men of Clan Campbell in tlie centre and the Lowland 
regiments borrowed from Baillie on each wing. Mon- 
trose himself led the Royalist centre, with Alastair on 
the left and Alastair's lieutenant, O'Kean, on the right. 
Sir Thomas Ogilvy commanded the little troop of 
horse which had managed to make its way with the 
infantry over the terrible hills. This was the one ad- 
vantage Montrose possessed. Otherwise, his men were 
on the point of starvation, having had scarcely a 
mouthful for forty-eight hours. He himself and Lord 
Airlie breakfasted on a little raw, meal mixed with cold 
water, which they ate with their dirks. 

The battle began with a movement by Ogilvy's 
horse, which gravely disquieted the Lowland wings. 
Then the Campbell centre fired a volley, and immedi- 
ately the whole Royalist front responded and charged. 
We may well believe that the firing of famished men 
was wild, but it mattered little, for soon they were 
come, as Montrose wrote, " to push of pike and dint 
of sword." Alastair and O'Kean had little difficulty 
with the Lowland levies. In spite of the experience of 
many of them with Leven, a Highland charge was a 
new and awful thing to them, and they speedily broke 
and fled. Inverlochy was won by strategy, for of 
tactics there was little, and that little was elementary, 



220 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

The gallant Campbell centre, indeed, made a deter- 
mined stand. They knew that they could hope for no 
mercy from their ancestral foes, and they were not 
forgetful of the honourable traditions of their race. 
But in time they also broke. Some rushed into the 
loch and tried in vain to reach the galley of their chief, 
now fleeing to safety ; some fled to the tower of In- 
verlochy. Most scattered along the shore, and on that 
blue February noon there was a fierce slaughter from 
the mouth of Nevis down ta the mouth of Loch Leven. 
The Lowlanders were given quarter, but, in spite of all 
his efforts, Montrose could win no mercy for the luck- 
less Campbells. The green Diarmaid tartan was a 
badge of death that day. On the Royalist side only 
four perished ; on the Covenant side the slain out- 
numbered the whole of Montrose's army. At least 
1,500 fell in the battle and pursuit, and among them 
were Auchinbreck himself and forty of the Campbell 
barons. Well might Keppoch's bard exult fiercely 
over the issue : 

*' Through the land of my fathers the Campbells have come. 
The flames of their foray enveloped my home ; 
Broad Keppoch in ruin is left to deplore, 
And my country is waste from the hill to the shore- 
Be it so ! by St. Mary, there's comfort in store. 



THE GREAT MONTBOSE 221 

" Though the braes of Lochaber a desert be made, 
And Glen Roy may be lost to the plough and the spade ; 
Though the bones of my kindred, unhonoured, unurned, 
Mark the desolate path where the Campbells have burned 
Be it so I From that foray they never returned." 

So ended one of the sternest and swiftest marches 
in the history of war. Inverlochy was in one respect 
a decisive victory, for it destroyed the clan power of 
Argyll, and from its terrible toll the Campbells as a 
fighting force never recovered. Alastair's policy was 
justified, and the MacDonalds were amply avenged ; 
the heather, as the phrase went, was above the gale 
at last.* To Montrose at the moment it seemed even 
more. He thought that with the galley of Lorn fell 
also the blue flag of the Covenant. He wrote straight- 
way to the King : 

" Give me leave, in all humility, to assure Tour 
Majesty that, through God's blessing, I am in the 
fairest hopes of reducing this kingdom to Your 
Majesty's obedience. And, if the measures I have 
concerted with your other loyal subjects fail me 
not, which they hardly can, I doubt not before 
the end of this summer I shall be able to come to 

* The heather is the MacDonald badge, and the gale, or bc^j 
myrtle, the Campbell, 



222 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Your Majesty's assistance with a brave army, 
which, backed with the justice of Your Majesty's 
cause, will make the rebels in England, as well as 
in Scotland, feel the just rewards of rebellion. 
Only give me leave, after I have reduced this 
country to Your Majesty's obedience, and con- 
quered from Dan to Beersheba, to say to Your 
Majesty then, as David's general did to his master, 
* Come thou thyself, lest this country be called by 
my name/ " 

It was not to be. He was to win other astonishing 
victories, but before the year closed Philiphaugh was 
to be fought and the great adventure was to end in 
exile. Five years later, on a May day in the High 
Street of Edinburgh, there closed on the gallows the 
career of the bravest of Scottish hearts. 



vni 

THE FHGHT OF LIEUTENANTS PARER 
AND M'INTOSH ACROSS THE WORLD 



THE FLIGHT OP LIEUTENANTS PARER 
AND M1NTOSH ACROSS THE WORLD 



the Great Wax there were thousands of hur- 
ried journeys made by airmen in the course of their 
military duties, and since November 1918 there have 
been many adventurous flights against time, in compe- 
tition for this or that prize. But the story I propose 
to tell is, to my mind, wilder and more inconceivable 
than any episode in the history of aircraft in the War. 
It was not strictly a journey against time, for though 
the two airmen began by intending to compete in the 
Australian Flight competition, they were not able 
to leave Britain till Sir Ross Smith had reached Port 
Darwin. But the element of haste was not wanting, 
for all they possessed was a condemned comic-opera 
machine, which was rapidly going to pieces on their 
hands. Mr. Kipling has told the story of the tramp 
Bolivar, and of how that unseaworthy hulk was brought 
across the Bay in a state of impending dissolution. 

225 



226 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

But if the Bolivar " bluffed the eternal sea," D.H.9 
for seven months bluffed the powers of the air and 
flew, a derelict 'bus, 15,000 miles over land and water, 
It seems to me the craziest adventure that ever, by 
habitually taking the one chance in ten thousand, 
managed to succeed. 

Lieutenant Raymond John Paul Parer was the son 
of a shopkeeper in Melbourne, a small, slight, dark 
man with a considerable turn for mechanics. During 
the War he was employed at training aerodromes in 
Britain, and was accustomed to fly new machines across 
to France. Lieutenant John Cowe M'Intosh was a 
large, raw-boned Scot from Banffshire with a rugged 
masterful face, who had served through the War with 
the Australian forces. To begin with he knew nothing 
about air mechanics, and picked up the science as he 
went along. The two, being in England after the 
Armistice, made up their mind to fly back to Australia. 
They had no money, and it occurred to them that they 
might earn the 10,000 prize by entering for the Aus- 
tralia Flight competition. They received very little 
encouragement from the Air Ministry, for both men 
were wholly unpractised in long-distance flights, and 
had no previous knowledge of the route or of any 
language bmt their own. They managed, however, to 



FLIGHT OF PARER AND MTNTOSE 227 

raise from a friend a little money, and with this they 
purchased from the Disposals Board a single-engined 
two-seater D.H.9 bombing machine, their intention 
being to carry extra petrol in place of bombs. The 
engine was a Siddeley-Puma of 240 h.p. Complete 
ignorance in their case was the parent of courage. 
They were roughly aware of the possible stages by 
which they might take their route, and resolved to 
nose their way from one to another and trust to luck, 
It was like a man in an ill-found and leaky small 
boat starting to cross the stormy Atlantic. Almost 
every part of their machine had some bad fault 
or other of which they were vaguely aware and ex- 
pected further news. 

They were not long in getting it. On January 8, 
1920, they left Hounslow, intending to make the first 
landing at Paris. But a contrary wind and a thick 
fog forced them to land at Conteville, and when they 
reached Paris their petrol pump failed and compelled 
them to wait three days. After that they flew to 
Lyons, where the pump gave trouble again and delayed 
them another two days. 

Then came the Gulf of Genoa. But they had hardly 
started when their oil ran out and they were com- 
pelled to return and fiy 100 miles along the Italian 



228 ESCAPES AND HUKRIED JOURNEYS 

coast without oil pressure, looking for a landing-place. 
Italy presented a series of mischances. The weather 
was abominable, and they crossed the Apennines at a 
height of 14,000 feet. There they were almost frozen, 
and for two and a half hours could see nothing of the 
ground. Later, at an altitude of 3,000 feet, their 
machine caught fire, and they were compelled to cut 
off the petrol and side-slip to land. 

Brindisi was at length reached, and they had to face 
the crossing of the Adriatic. Somehow or other they 
reached Athens, where they had more engine trouble, 
and then staggered on to Crete. From Crete they 
flew the 220 miles of the Mediterranean to Mersa 
Matruh in Western Egypt, and eventually, on 21st 
February, reached Cairo. 

The scheduled flying time from England to Cairo 
is under forty hours; but the trip had taken them 
forty-four days. They had now established the 
routine of their journey, which was to break down 
every day or two, and then patch up the machine 
with oddments sufficient to carry it to the next 
landing-place, where it fell to pieces again. 

For four days at the Helouan aerodrome the two 
laboured at their crazy 'bus. Their propeller was 
defective ; there were endless carburation troubles ; 



FLIGHT OF PARER AND MTOTOSH 229 

the bolts propeller, bearer, and cylinder were al- 
ways working loose ; magnetos, oil filters, everything, 
were imperfect ; the instruments were always fail- 
ing, especially the air-speed indicator. And they had 
flown all the way to Egypt without cleaning their 
plugs ! 

On 26th February they set off again, making a bee- 
line for Bagdad a direct flight which no airman had 
ever before accomplished. For the enterprise, and 
still more for the continuation of the journey to Aus- 
tralia, they had no assets whatever, except a letter 
of authority from the General Officer Commanding 
R.A.F. Depots, which entitled them to draw for petrol 
on any depot along the route between Cairo and Delhi. 
It did not seem on the remote edge of possibility that 
much use would be made of that letter. 

Nevertheless that day they crossed the desert of 
Sinai and landed safely at Ramleh. Thence they shaped 
their course across Arabia, an adventure in which, as 
we have seen, they were in the strictest sense pioneers. 
The weather changed to their disadvantage, and they 
drove on into head winds and heavy sheets of rain. 
A breakdown in the midst of the desert meant either 
starvation or robbery, and probably murder, by Arab 
tribes, a&d sure enough the breakdown came. They 



230 ESCAPES AOT) HURRIED JOURNEYS 

were compelled to make a forced landing in the even- 
ing, and Lad to spend the night on the ground by their 
machine. In the early morning they observed a 
crowd of Arabs approaching with obviously hostile 
intent. But the two airmen, having dared so much, 
were not to be awed by casual Bedouin. They hap- 
pened to have some Mills bombs aboard, and with 
these and their revolvers they routed the enemy and 
kept bJTn at bay until such time as they could start 
again. 

Bagdad was reached eventually, entirely by luck 
and not at all by good guiding. There they were 
welcomed by the British air posts, and speeded on 
their way across Baluchistan and the Gulf of Kutch 
to Karachi, which they reached without mishap on 
8th March. In India they fell in with .Captain G. C. 
Matthews of the Australian Flying Corps, and in his 
Sopwith machine " Wallaby " he accompanied them 
across the peninsula to Delhi, where they had a busy 
time patching up D.H.9. The old relic was suffering 
from almost every ailment to which an aeroplane is 
subject. For one thing the central section was begin- 
ning to rise above the level of the wings, and they 
could only remedy the defect by packing with iron 
washers. The fabric, through constant exposure, 



FLIGHT OF PARER AKD MTNtTOSH 231 

was rotten, and the coats of ordinary motor-car paint 
with which it had been treated were peeling oS^in 
great patches. It was breaking away, too, all along 
the ribs, and they had to renew it there as best they 
could. Their first propeller had been damaged by 
taking ofi from the desert sands and had been renewed 
at Bagdad. Every assistance was given them by 
the R.A.F. officers in India, but it was not easy to 
patch up the unpatchable. 

From Delhi they flew safely across the Bay of Bengal 
to Rangoon, but were compelled to make a forced 
landing in thick forest on the bank of the Irawaddy 
river, which did not improve the condition of D.H.9. 

On 4th April they reached Rangoon and flew on 
another hundred miles to Moulmein. There, however, 
DJEL9 struck work. It crashed, and was so seriously 
damaged that they had to sit down quietly for no less 
than six weeks before they could resume their jour- 
ney. Everything all at once seemed to dissolve into 
its parent elements. Their compasses were crocked ; 
their radiator was in pieces ; the under-carriage had 
at last collapsed completely, and the new propeller 
acquired at Bagdad was destroyed. Happily they 
managed to get a propeller of the Caproni type from. 
a depot established there by the organizers of thi 



232 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Rome-ToMo flight. But the propeller had been 
designed for a 300 hup. Fiat, and the result of fitting 
it to a 240 h.p. Siddeley-Pinna meant a serious over- 
running of the engine. It was found, too, that the 
diameter of the Caproni "boss" was much larger 
than that of the D.H.9 shaft, so the gap was blocked 
with a Burmese wood which is so heavy that it will not 
float and so hard that it blunts the sharpest tool. A 
new under-carriage was constructed out of a tough, 
close-grained native timber, which they bought from 
a local Chinaman. The wood was seasoned in an 
oven, and the new under-carriage was modelled from 
the assembled debris of the old one. They impro- 
vised a new radiator by taking a couple of ordinary 
"Overland" motor-car radiators and bolting them 
together ! 

Thus equipped, after six weeks' delay they started 
again, but presently they had another crash a nose- 
dive in Batavia. This meant another delay, and a 
fourth propeller was got through the efforts of the 
British consul and the Dutch authorities. But before 
they left Dutch territory they had still another mishap, 
and a fifth propeller had to be found. Here the Dutch 
Air Force came to the rescue. They sent to their 
depot 400 miles away for spares, and provided a new 




A crowd of Arabs approaching with obviously 
hostile intent. 



FLIGHT OF PAEEE AND M'INTOSH 233 

under-carriage. Moreover, they lent the travellers two 
air mechanics, who worked under their supervision 
and managed to bring D.H.9 into some semblance 
of working order. 

Meantime through these weeks of sojourn in tropical 
lands the machine had been converted into a sort of 
menagerie, and various strange animals made the 
fuselage their home, and only showed themselves 
in mid air. Among the beasts which thus added 
themselves to the party were bear cubs, a selection 
of lizards, several snakes, a whole congregation of 
rats and mice, and a baby alligator ! 

The next stage of the journey the flight to Australia 
over 400 miles of sea was the most anxious of all. 
It began unpromisingly, for D.H.9 had great diffi- 
culty in getting over the mountains of the island of 
Timor. When the ocean was reached the travellers 
discovered that they had lost their bearings ; but the 
intrepid pair pushed on boldly into the unknown. 
For eight hours they journeyed in the void, and when 
their oil was almost run out they were at last 
greeted by the sight of land. On the last day of July, 
#ith one pint of petrol left, they landed at Fanny 
Bay in the Northern Territory. Next morning, the 
1st of August, they reached Port Darwin. 



234 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

They had achieved the journey to Australia, but 
their troubles were not over. They struggled on to 
Sydney, where, at the Mascot aerodrome on 22nd 
August, they were welcomed by an immense crowd 
of nearly 20,000 people. But Melbourne was their 
goal, and on the journey to Melbourne DJEL9 met its 
doom. At Culcairn it nose-dived into the earth at 
a speed of 70 miles an hour, and only the amazing 
luck of the travellers saved their necks. Another 
machine was provided for them, and on 31st August 
they finished their journey of 15,000 miles by reaching 
Flermngton Racecourse at Melbourne. Accompanied 
by the battered remnants of D.H.9 they were officially 
welcomed by Mr. Hughes, the Commonwealth Prime 
Minister, to whom they presented a bottle of whisky, 
which they had brought with them intact from London. 
A day or two later they were formally received in 
Parliament Buildings and each presented with 500. 

" The world is richer and better for what you have 
done," Mr. Hughes told them, and he spoke the truth. 
Their achievement was like the attempts to ascend 
Mount Everest utterly useless in any prosaic sense, 
but a vindication of the vigour and daring of the 
human spirit. The history of aircraft is only begin- 
ning, but it is not likely that it will show any feat more 



FLIGHT OF PARER AND M'INTOSH 235 

wildly temerarious than that of these two amateurs who 
drove a crazy machine through every type of weather 
and over every type of country from the snowy Apen- 
nines to the Malayan forests always in difficulties, 
always resourceful and undaunted, till by sheer resolu- 
tion they forced reluctant Fortune to yield to their 
importunity. 

It seems to be the fate of great airmen, after daring 
the apparently impossible, to meet disaster in hum- 
drum flights. Lieutenant M'lntosh was to go the 
way of Sir John Alcock and Sir Ross Smith, for on 
29th March of the following year he was killed through 
his machine crashing in a sir all town in Western 
Australia. 



IX 

LORD NITHSDALE'S ESCAPE 



LORD NITHSDALE'S ESCAPE 

THE first of the great Jacobite rebellions, that of 1715, 
was grossly mismanaged from the start. The invasion 
of England by the Scottish Catholic lords and the 
Northumbrian Jacobites came to a dismal close at 
Preston, and the Tower of London was soon full of 
exalted personages the English Earl of Derwentwater, 
who was a grandson of Charles II., and the Scottish 
Earls of Wintoun, Nithsdale, and Carnwath, and Lord 
Kenmure, who was head of the Galloway Gordons. 
The trial of the Jacobite lords was not a masterpiece 
of English justice. The method followed was im- 
peachment, and it was clear from the start that with a 
Protestant House of Commons Catholic rebels had no 
kind of chance. Without proper proof they were con- 
demned a political, rather than a legal verdict. They 
were advised ta plead guilty, which as it turned out 
was an unwise course, for thereby they trusted their 
lives to the Crown and not to the English law, and 



240 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

King George's Government were determined to make 
an example of them as a matter of policy. Wintoun 
alone refused to plead. 

But tlie people of England were more merciful than 
their Government, and the popular feeling in favour 
of leniency was so strong that Walpole was unable to 
send all the lords to the scaffold. For Derwentwater 
there could be no mercy ; he was too near in blood to 
the royal house. Mthsdale and Kenmure were also 
marked for death, partly because they were devouter 
Catholics than the others, and partly because of their 
great power in the Lowlands. On Thursday, February 
23, 1716, the Lord Chancellor signed the warrants 
for their execution on the Saturday. 

Derwentwater and Kenmure duly lost their heads, 
and two famous houses were brought to ruin. But 
when the guards arrived to summon Mthsdale to the 
scaffold they found that he was gone. This is the 
story of his escape. 

The Countess of Mthsdale had been Lady Winifred 
Herbert, the youngest daughter of the first Marquis 
of Powis. At the time she was twenty-six years of 
age, a slim young woman with reddish hair and pale 
blue eyes. Her family had always been Catholic and 



LORD NITHSDALE'S ESCAPE 241 

Royalist, and she had shown herself one of the most 
ardent of Jacobite ladies. 

When the news came of the rout at Preston she was 
at Terregles, the home of the Maxwells in Nithsdale. 
She realized at once that her husband could expect no 
mercy, and that his death must follow his imprison- 
ment as certainly as night follows day. It was a bitter 
January, with snowdrifts on every road. Without 
wasting an hour she set off for the south after burn- 
ing incriminating papers. Her only attendant was a 
Welsh girl called Evans, from the Powis estates, who 
had been her maid since childhood. 

The two women and a groom rode through the 
wintry country to Newcastle, where they took the 
coach for York. Presently the coach stuck in the 
snow and word came that all the roads were blocked. 
But by offering a large sum Lady Nithsdale managed 
to hire horses, and pushed on into the Midlands. The 
little company suffered every kind of disaster, but the 
lady's resolute spirit overcame them all, and after 
some days of weary travel they reached London. 

Lady Mthsdale went straight to some of the Scot- 
tish great ladies, such as the Duchess of Buccleuch 
and the Duchess of Montrose, and heard from them 
that the worst might be expected. She realized that 



242 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

no appeal could save the prisoner, and that, unless he 
could break bar and bolt, in a week she would be a 
widow. The first step was to get admission to the 
Tower. Walpole refused to let her see her husband 
unless she was prepared to share his captivity to the 
end. She declined the condition, for she understood 
that if she was to do anything she must be free. At 
last she succeeded in bribing the keepers, and found 
herself in her husband's chamber. As she looked round 
she saw that there was no chance of an ordinary escape. 
One high barred window gave on the ramparts and 
Water Lane, and a sentry was on guard in front. If 
Lord Nithsdale were to leave the Tower he must leave 
it by the door. That in turn was strongly guarded. 
A halberdier stood outside and two sentries with fixed 
bayonets, and the stairs and the outer door were 
equally well held. Force was out of the question. 
The only hope lay in ingenuity. 

The weak part of any prison is to be found in. the 
human warders, more especially in a place so strong 
as the Tower, where the ordinary avenues of escape 
are few and difficult. The Lieutenant, trusting in 
his walls, was inclined to be negligent. The prison 
rules were often disregarded, and the wives and chil- 
dren of the officials wandered about the passages at 



LORD NTTHSDALE'S ESCAPE 243 

will. TMs gave Lady Nithsdale her plan. -She pro- 
posed to her husband to dress him up in cap and skirt 
and false curls and pass him as a woman through the 
soldiers. Very soon she had worked out the details. 
She had women friends who would assist : a Miss Hilton, 
and the landlady, Mrs. Mills, at her lodging in Drury 
Lane. The latter was tall and inclined to be stout, 
and a riding-hood that fitted her would fit Lord 
Nithsdale, while a red wig would counterfeit Mrs. 
Mills's hair. The prisoner's black eyebrows could be 
painted out, his chin shaved and his skin rouged. 

Lord Nithsdale stubbornly refused. The scheme 
seemed to him crazy. How could a stalwart soldier 
with a rugged face and a martial stride imitate any 
woman ? He might do something with a sword in 
his hand, but, raddled and painted, he would only be 
a laughing-stock. Far better let his wife get a petition 
from him placed in the royal hands. There might 
be some hope in that. 

Lady Nithsdale pretended to agree, though she 
knew well that the Bong's clemency was a broken reed. 
For George had given strict orders that no petition 
from Lord Nithsdale should be received, and she found 
her friends very unwilling to disobey the King and act 
as intermediary. Her only hope was to see George 



244 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

himself; so she dressed herself in deep black, and, 
accompanied "by Miss Hilton, who knew the King by 
sight, went to Court. They reached the room "be- 
tween the King's apartment and the main drawing- 
room, and when George appeared she flung herself 
before him. " I am the wretched Countess of Niths- 
dale," she cried. The King stepped back, refusing 
to take the petition ; but she caught him by the skirt 
of Ms coat and poured out her story in French. 
George lost his temper, but she would not let go, and 
suffered herself to be dragged along the floor to the 
drawing-room door. There the officials unclasped her 
fingers and released his angry Majesty. 

Lord Nithsdale now turned his hopes to the House 
of Lords. The Countess went from peer to peer; 
but once again she failed. Lord Pembroke, indeed, 
who was a kinsman, spoke in favour of the prisoner, 
but the thing was hopeless from the start. Nithsdale 
was utterly intractable and impenitent, and would 
never beg for his life. 

Her husband's counsels having failed, it remained 
to follow her own. She drove to the Tower and told 
all the guards and keepers that Lord Nithsdale's last 
petition to the House of Lords had been favourably 
received, and that His Majesty was about to listen to 



LORD NITHSDALE'S ESCAPE 245 

their prayer. The officials congratulated her, for she 
had made herself very popular amongst them, and 
their friendliness was increased by her gifts. But to 
her husband she told the plain truth. The last moment 
had come. Next day was Friday, when the King 
would answer the petition. If he refused, as he was 
certain to do, on Saturday the prisoner would go to 
the scaffold. 

On that Friday morning she completed her plans 
with Mrs. Mills, and as the January dusk drew in Miss 
Hilton joined them in Drury Lane and the details 
were finally settled. Miss Hilton was to be a friend, 
"Mrs. Catherine," and Mrs. Mills another friend, 
" Mrs. Betty." With the maid Evans all three would 
drive to the Tower, where Evans would wait incon- 
spicuously near the Lieutenant's door, and the other 
three women would go to the earl's chamber. Miss 
Hilton, being slim, was to wear two riding-hoods, her 
own and that of Mrs. Mills. When she was in the 
room she was to drop her extra clothes and leave at 
once. Mrs. Mills was then to go in as " Mrs. Betty," 
wearing a riding-hood to fit the earl. She was to be 
weeping bitterly and holding a handkerchief to her 
face. Everything depended upon Miss Hilton being 
able to slip away quietly ; then Mrs. Mills, having 



246 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

diminished in size, was to depart as " Mrs. Catherine," 
while the earl was to go out as " Mrs. Betty." The 
vital point was to get the sentries thoroughly confused 
as to who had gone in and out. 

They drove in a coach to the Tower, and Lady 
Nithsdale, in order to keep the others from doleful 
anticipations, chattered the whole way. When they 
reached the Tower they found several women in the 
Council Chamber who had come to see Lady Niths- 
dale pass, for they had a suspicion, in spite of her 
cheerfulness, that this was the last occasion on which 
she would see her husband alive. The presence of 
these women, who were all talking together, helped 
to confuse the sentries. Lady Nithsdale took in Miss 
Hilton first, naming her "Mrs. Catherine." Miss 
Hilton at once shed her extra clothing and then left, 
Lady Nithsdale accompanying her to the staircase 
and crying, " Send my maid to me at once. I must 
be dressed without delay or I shall be too late for my 
petition." Then Mrs. Mills came up the stairs, a 
large fat woman sobbing bitterly and apparently all 
confused with grief. She was greeted by the Countess 
as " Mrs. Betty," and taken into Lord Nithsdale's 
room. There she changed her clothes, dried her tears, 
and went out with her head up and a light foot. 



LORD NITHSDALE'S ESCAPE 247 

" Good-bye, my dear Mrs. Catherine," Lady Niths- 
dale cried after her. " Don't omit to send my maid. 
She cannot know how late it is. She has forgotten 
that I am to present the petition to-night." The 
women in the Council Chamber watched Mrs. Mills's 
departure with sympathy, and the sentry opened the 
door for her to pass. 

Now came the great moment. If any single keeper 
in the outer room had kept his wits about him the plot 
must be discovered. Everything depended upon their 
being confused among the women, and believing that 
" Mrs. Betty " was still with the Countess in Lord Niths- 
dale's chamber. It was nearly dark and in a few 
minutes lights would be brought in, and a single candle 
would betray them. The Countess took off all her 
petticoats save one and tied them round her husband. 
There was no time to shave him, so she wrapped 
a muffler round his chin. His cheeks were rouged; 
false ringlets were tied around his brow ; and a great 
riding-hood was put on. Then the Countess opened 
the door and led him by the hand. Her voice was now 
sharp with anxiety. " For the love of God," she cried, 
" my dear Mrs. Betty, run and bring her with you. 
You know my lodgings, and if ever you hurried in your 
life, hurry now. I am driven mad with this delay/* 



248 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

The sentries in the dim light were unsuspicious and 
let them pass ; indeed, one of them opened the chamber 
door. The Countess slipped behind her husband in 
the passage, so that no one looking after him should 
see his walk, which was unlike that of any woman 
ever born. "Make haste, make haste," she cried, 

and then, almost before she had realized it, they had 

\ 
passed the last door and the sentries. 

Evans, the maid, was waiting, and, seizing Lord 
Nithsdale, alias " Mrs. Betty," by the arm, hurried 
"him off to a house near Drury Lane. There he was 
dressed in the livery of a servant of the Venetian 
Minister, and started for the coast. 

The Countess, dreading lest some keeper should 
enter her husband's room and find him gone, rushed 
back there with a great appearance of distress and 
slammed the door. Then for a few minutes she strolled 
about with the step of a heavy man, and carried on 
an imaginary conversation, imitating his gruff replies. 
Now came the last stage. She raised the latch, and, 
standing in the doorway so that all the crowd in the 
Council Chamber could hear, bade her husband good- 
night with every phrase of affection. She declared 
that something extraordinary must have happened 
to Evans, and that there was nothing for it but to 




The sentries in the dim light were unsuspicious and 
let them pass. 



LORD NITHSDALE'S ESCAPE 249 

go herself and see. She added that if the Tower were 
open she would come back that night. Anyhow, she 
hoped to be with him early in the morning, bringing 
him good news. As she spoke she drew the latch-string 
through the hole and banged the door. "I pray you, 
do not disturb my lord," she said in passing. " Do 
not send him candles till he calls for them. He is now 
at his prayers." The unsuspicious sentries saluted 
her with sympathy. Beyond the outer gate was a 
waiting coach in which she drove at once to tell the 
Duchess of Montrose what had been done. Meantime 
Lord Nithsdale, dressed as an Italian servant, was 
posting along the road to Dover, where, next morning, 
he found a boat for Calais. It was not long before 
Ms wife rejoined him in Borne. 

Lady Nithsdale's bold escapade was received by 
the people of England with very general approval. 
Even the Grovernment, who were beginning to iiave 
doubts about the wisdom of their policy, were not 
disposed to be too severe on the heroic wife. When 
the Duchess of Montrose went to Court next day she 
found the King very angry. But the royal anger was 
short-lived. Presently he began to laugh. " Upon 
my soul," he said, " for a man in my lord's situation 
it was the very best thing he could have done." 



SIR ROBERT GARY'S RIDE TO 
EDINBURGH 



SIR ROBERT GARY'S RIDE TO 
EDINBURGH 

THE history of these islands is strewn with tales of 
swift and fateful rides, but as a rule the distances were 
short. In old days it was nobody's business to get 
in a hurry from Land's End to John o 5 Groats, and 
long journeys, even the marches of the Edwards into 
Scotland, were leisurely affairs. But though roads 
were infamous, horses were as good then as now, and 
if a man were called upon for an extended journey 
against time he could make a record on horseback 
that was scarcely surpassed till the days of steam. 
Queen Mary, after the Battle of Langside, rode the 
92 miles through the western moorlands to the shores 
of the Solway without, as she said, drawing rein, 
though I presume there were changes of mount. That, 
indeed, is the essence of the business, for no horse 
ever foaled can keep its pace beyond a certain limit. 
The present writer once, in his youth, rode 75 miles 

253 



254 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

in the Northern Transvaal at a stretch on one horse ; 
but, after the Boer fashion, he off-saddled every two 
hours for twenty minutes a thing impossible in a 
really hustled journey. 

This story tells of the ride of Sir Robert Gary 
from London to Edinburgh with the news of the death 
of Elizabeth. The distance by any road was little less 
than 400 miles, but he probably took short cuts after 
he crossed the Border. He did the course in something 
under sixty hours a most remarkable achievement. 
When William HI. died at 8 a.m. on March 8, 1702, 
the news, though sent off at once, did not reach Edin- 
burgh till 10 p.m. on llth March 85 hours. Gary's 
record was not indeed approached till the days of post- 
chaises and flying mails. In 1832 the Reform Bill 
passed the Lords at 6.35 a.m. on Saturday, 14th April, 
Sixty-five minutes later Mr. Young of The Sun news- 
paper left the Strand in a post-chaise and four, with 
copies of the paper containing a report of the debate 
and the division, and on Sunday, at 7.30 p.m., he 
arrived at the house of his agent in Glasgow. The 
distance was 403 miles, and it was covered in 35 hours 
50 minutes.* 

'Five years later, when the completion of Telford's 

* Mitchell's OU Glasgow Essays, pp. 195-196, 



SIR ROBERT GARY'S RIDE 255 

new Carlisle-Glasgow road had reduced the distance to 
397 miles, the mail which "brought to Glasgow news 
of the death of William IV. left the General Post 
Office at 8 p.m. on 20th June and reached Glasgow 
at 2 p.m. on 22nd June & total of 42 hours. But till 
1832 Gary's record would seem to have held the field. 
Now for the story. Sir Robert Gary, who afterwards 
became Earl of Monmouth, was the youngest of the 
ten sons of Henry Lord Hunsdon, who was a cousin 
of Queen Elizabeth. He had a varied and adven- 
turous youth. As a very young man he visited Scot- 
land with Walsingham, and thus formed his first 
acquaintance with King James. The Scottish king 
would have taken him into his service; but there 
were difficulties with Elizabeth, and young Gary con- 
sequently went to the Low Countries with the Earl 
of Essex. When Mary of Scots was beheaded he was 
chosen to carry Elizabeth's explanations to James in 
Scotland, and the following year he was again at 
Dumfries with the Scottish king, who was busy sup- 
pressing refractory Maxwells. In 1589, being very 
hard up, he wagered 2,000 with another courtier that 
he would walk the 300 miles to Berwick in twelve 
days. He won his bet, and thereafter, he tells us, was 
enabled to live for some time at Court like a gentle- 



256 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

man. He must have been no mean pedestrian, and 
that in an age when the gentry rode too habitually to 
walk well. 

After that he crossed the Channel again with Essex, 
ancTcommanded a regiment with some distinction, so 
that he was knighted on the field by his general. 
When the French war was ended he found himself 
without employment and considerably in debt. He 
was lucky enough, however, to be appointed successor 
to old Lord Scroop, the Warden of the West Marches. 
The Scottish border was at that time divided into 
three Wardenships the East Marches, from the sea 
to the Great Cheviot ; the Middle Marches, from 
Cheviot to the Liddel ; and the West Marches, ex- 
tending to the Solway shore. 

He was now in his early thirties, and for some years 
he led a stirring life, keeping order among the Arm- 
strongs, Elliots, and Grahams in the " Debateable 
Land." Sir Robert was not the most elevated of 
characters ; he was a true courtier, steering the frail 
barque of his fortunes with caution and skill in the 
difficult waters of the queen's favour. Once he was 
sent on a very confidential mission to James at Edin- 
burgh, and seeing that the King of Scots must sooner 
or later come to the English throne, he laboured to 



SIR EGBERT GARY'S RIDE 257 

stand well with Mm. Presently he became Deputy- 
Warden for his father in the East Marches, and was 
given the Captainship of Norham Castle on Tweed. 
There he had perpetual troubles with Sir Robert Ker 
of Cessford, the ancestor of the Dukes of Roxburghe, 
and on the whole got the better of that stalwart Bor- 
derer. There seems to have been little ill-will in the 
Marches in those days. Both sides laboured to out- 
wit the other, but they bore no grudge for failure, and 
one month would be harrying each other's lands and 
the nest hobnobbing at huntings and festivals. By 
and by Sir Robert Ker became his hostage and guest, 
and the two grew fast friends. 

When Lord Hunsdon died Sir Robert was made 
Warden in his father's place, and with the help of the 
Fosters, Ridleys, Musgraves, Fenwicks, and Widdring- 
tons, exercised a strong, if cautious, rule throughout 
the bounds of Cheviot. He led an expedition against 
the Armstrongs, who sheltered themselves in the Bog 
of Tarras, and by a swift march got in on their rear 
and made a large haul of prisoners. Sir Walter Scott., 
in his early journeyings in Liddesdale, found that the 
people there had still a tradition of what they called 
* fc Gary's raid." It was the most creditable period of 
his life, and he seems to have enjoyed it, for there was 



258 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

that in the man which delighted in alarums and ex* 
cursions. 

But once a courtier always a courtier. Throughout 
these stirring years Gary was perpetually haunted by 
anxiety as to how he stood in the Queen's favour, and 
when he could spare the time would go South to show 
himself at Court. At the end of the year 1602 he was 
in London and found Elizabeth very ill. " She took 
me by the hand and wrung it hard, and said, * Young 
Robin, I am not well/ and then discoursed with me 
of her indisposition and that her heart had been sad 
and heavy for ten or twelve days ; and rp. her dis- 
course she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great 
sighs. I was grieved at first to see her in this plight, 
for of all my life before I never knew her fetch a sigh 
but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded." 

The great Queen was now seventy years of age. All 
spring and summer she had been very well and had 
gone maying in the Lewisham woods. The Ambassador 
of Scotland had been kept waiting in corridors, as if 
to announce to his master that the time was far distant 
when he could transfer himself to Whitehall. In the 
autumn the Court had been especially gay ; but Lord 
Worcester had noted that the Queen was failing, and 
that in the winter " the tune of Lullaby " would be 



SIB ROBERT GARY'S RIDE 259 

tlie one wanted. In the middle of January 1603, on 
the insistence of her doctors, she moved to Richmond, 
where the Court and Council followed her. At first 
nothing would persuade her to go to bed ; and when 
Nottingham and Cecil insisted she replied that the 
word " must " was not used to princes. " Little man, 
little man," she cried to Cecil, " if your father had 
lived you durst not have said so much ; but you know 
I must die and that makes you presumptuous." 

On the 22nd of March she was obviously sinking. She 
told Nottingham that only a king must succeed her, 
and when pressed to be more explicit, added, " Who 
should that be but our cousin of Scotland ? " On 
Wednesday, 23rd March, she was speechless, and that 
afternoon called her Council to her bedchamber. When 
she was asked about her successor she put her hand to 
her head at the mention of the King of Scots, which 
the watchers interpreted to signify acquiescence. The 
archbishop and her chaplains remained with her pray- 
ing during the night, and at about three on the 
morning of the 24th she died. 

Gary was in a fever of impatience. He remembered 
his old acquaintance with King James, and realized 
that whoever took trim the first news of the Queen's 
death would stand a good chance of rising high in his 



260 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

favour. But he was also aware that the Lords of the 
Council would do their best to prevent any unauthor- 
ized messenger, and that they certainly would not 
authorize him. On the night of the 23rd he went 
back to his lodging, leaving word with the servants of 
the Queen's household to let him know if it were likely 
the Queen would die, and giving the porter an angel 
to let him in at any time he called. Between one and 
two on Thursday morning he received a message that 
the Queen was at the point of death, and he hastened 
to the royal apartments. There at first he was for- 
bidden entrance, the Lords of the Council having 
ordered that none should go in or out except by their 
warrant. But a friend managed to get him in, and 
passing through the waiting ladies in the ante-chamber 
he entered the privy chamber, where the Council was 
assembled. The Lords dealt with him brusquely, for 
they had divined his intention and forbade him to go 
to Scotland till they sent him. He then went to his 
brother's room, roused Mm, and made him accompany 
frim to the gate. The porter could not refuse, in spite 
of the Council's orders, to let out Lord Hunsdon, and 
the zealous Sir Robert managed to follow in his train, 
Gary was a man of action and did not let the grass 
grow under Ms feet. He rode straight to the Knight 



SIR ROBERT GARY'S REDE 261 

Marshal's lodging by Charing Cross, where he slept till 
morning. At nine o'clock he heard that the Lords of 
the Council were in the old orchard at Whitehall, and 
he sent the Marshal to tell them that he awaited their 
commands. They were determined that Gary should 

not move ; but they told the Marshal to send for him, 


as if they meant to dispatch him, at once to King 
James. One of them, however, Lord Banbury, whis- 
pered in the Marshal's ear that if Gary came he would 
be detained and another sent in his stead. The Mar- 
shal met Gary arriving at the gate, and told him the 
facts. Gary's mind was made up. He turned, mounted 
his horse, and rode for the North. 

The start was made between nine and ten o'clock. 
The route was probably the Great North Road to Don- 
caster, where he slept the night, having covered 155 
miles since the morning. Next day he reached his 
own house at Widdrington in Northumberland, the 
house of the March Warden, having left some very 
weary cattle on the road behind him. There he gave 
his deputies instructions to see to the peace of the 
Borders, and next morning to proclaim James King of 
England at Morpeth and Alnwick. At dawn on Satur- 
day, the 26th, he took the road again and reached his 
Castle of Norham about noon, travelling probably 



262 ESCAPES AND HUEEIED JOURNEYS 

by the eastern end of the Cheviots and the town of 
Wooler. 

It was a disastrous morning, for he had a bad fall 
and was kicked by his horse on the head, so that he 
lost much blood. But Gary was a true moss-trooper^ 
and though forty-three years of age was as tough in 
body as any young Armstrong or Elliot. He did not 
tarry at Norham, but set off at once for Edinburgh, 
probably by the valley of the Leader and Soutra Hj.ll. 
He complains that he was compelled to ride a " soft 
pace '' because of his wounds, or he would have been in 
Edinburgh early in the evening in time for supper. 

He finally arrived at Holyrood about nine or ten, 
and found that the King had gone to bed. Crying that 
he had great news for the royal ear, he was at once 
taken to the King's chamber, where he knelt and saluted 
James as monarch of England, Scotland, Ireland, and 
France. The King gave him, his hand to kiss and wel- 
comed him kindly, listening eagerly to the tale of the 
Queen's sickness and death. He asked if there were 
any letters from the Council. But Gary explained the 
position and how narrowly he had escaped from them. 
But he gave the King " a blue ring from a fair lady " 
(I presume Queen Elizabeth), on which His Majesty 
said, " It is enough. I know by this you are a true 



SIR EGBERT GARY'S RIDE 263 

messenger." Gary was handed over to Lord Home, 
with strict instructions for his entertainment, and the 
Bang's own surgeons were sent to look after him. 
When he kissed hands on departure, James thus ad- 
dressed him: "I know you have lost a near kins- 
woman and a loving mistress ; but take here my hand. 
I will be as good a master to you, and will requite this 
service with honour and reward." 

Sir Robert went to bed a happy man, and for a day 
or two his fortunes looked roseate. But presently 
came the bitter complaint by the Lords of the Council 
of his unauthorized performance/ and he realized that 
James's gratitude was a brittle thing and that he had 
too many competitors for the .royal favour. For a 
year or two the poor moss-trooper was under a cloud. 
But his tough and wary spirit could not be permanently 
eclipsed, and before long he had risen again to favour- 
He accompanied Prince Charles and the Duke of Buck- 
ingham on their wild visit to Spain, and was given an 
earldom by Bang Charles I. 

As I have said, his was no very elevated character, 
and Ms name lives in English history only because of 
his mad three days* ride, which for more than two 
hundred years was not equalled. 



XI 

THE ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA 



THE ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA 

IN the year 1718 the Chevalier de St. George, or, as 
some called him, the Old Pretender, after the defeat of 
his hopes in Scotland, had retired to Rome. At the 
age of thirty he was still a bachelor, but the unhappi- 
ness of his condition was due not to his celibacy but 
to his misfortunes. The Jacobite campaign of 1715 
had proved a disastrous failure ; and although he still 
retained the courtesy title of James HI., he was a king 
without a realm. While the royal exile was twiddling 
his thumbs in the Italian capital, waiting for a better 
turn of luck, his friends, seeing that nothing further 
was to be gained by the pursuit of Mars, sought the 
aid of Cupid. They laid before the Chevalier the 
flattering proposal of a marriage with a Princess of 
beauty and race. This move was inspired less by 
romance than by polities, for a suitable marriage would 
not only encourage the waning Jacobite hopes, but 
might raise up an heir to the Cause. 

267 



268 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

The Chevalier readily concurred in the scheme, and 
a certain Mr. Charles Wogan was dispatched to the 
various European courts to report on a suitable bride 
for the Chevalier. Wogan's choice fell on the little 
Polish Princess Clementina Sobiesky, daughter of 
James Sobiesky of Poland and Edwige Elizabeth 
Amelia of the house of Newburgh, and grand-daughter 
of the famous John Sobiesky, the " deliverer of Christ- 
endom." 

The chronicles of the time are loud in the praises of 
this lady, her illustrious birth, her qualities of heart 
and mind, " her Goodness, Sweetness of Temper, and 
other Beauties of a valuable character." She is said 
to have been " happy in all the Charms, both of Mind 
and Body, her Sex can boast of " ; " the Agreeableness 
of Seventeen and the Solidity of Thirty." Her ac- 
complishments included Polish, High Dutch, French, 
Italian, and English, all of which she spoke so well that 
it was difficult to distinguish which of these languages 
was the most familiar to her. She was also a young 
woman of exemplary piety, and therefore a suitable 
bride for a king in exile. Princess Clementina was 
only sixteen when the Chevalier and his friends laid 
siege to her affections. 

It was no ordinary business, for there were many 



ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA 269 

hazards and difficulties in the way. The Chevalier 
had given his consent to the proposed alliance ; it was 
for his friends to see it brought to a successful issue, 
and the plan of campaign was left entirely in their 
hands. The bridegroom was a mere pawn a willing 
pawn in the game. The real difficulty was the House 
of Hanover, the inveterate enemy of the Stuart cause, 
which was by no means inclined to look with indul- 
gence on the proposed alliance. Although the affair 
was kept a profound secret, the matter gradually 
leaked out ; and George I. of England protested with 
such vigour to the Emperor on the folly and danger 
of the impending marriage, threatening among other 
things to break up the Quadruple Alliance, that Prin- 
cess Clementina was arrested at Innsbruck with her 
mother and kept there under strict surveillance. 

The Chevalier and his friends were in a quandary. 
Obviously a man built in the heroic mould was neces- 
sary to extricate them from the dilemma. They 
bethought them of Wogan, who had been recalled 
from his delicate mission on the pretext that it was 
impolitic to entrust the matter further to an Irish 
Catholic. Wogan was well adapted for this sort of ad- 
venture. He was, besides being something of a poet, 
a cavalier and a courtier. He had shared the hard 



270 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

fortunes of the Chevalier in Scotland, and had suffered 
imprisonment for his devotion to the Stuart cause. 
Once more the soldier of fortune was called upon to 
prove his devotion in a cause no less hazardous. 

The Pope, who had been taken into the secret, had 
provided Wogan with a passport in the name of the 
Comte de Cernes, and forth he fared like a fairy-tale 
knight to rescue a distressed princess. Never had 
d'Artagnan and his Musketeers a more difficult task. 
Wogan duly arrived at Innsbruck in the disguise of a 
merchant, and obtained an interview with the Princess 
and her mother, who heartily concurred in the pro- 
posed plan of a secret " elopement." We next find 
him at Ohlau in quest of the Prince Sobiesky, the 
lady's father. Here he met with a rebuff. Prince 
Sobiesky, a practical man of the world, viewed the 
whole affair as midsummer madness, and absolutely 
refused to lend his aid or consent to Wogan's scheme. 

Wogan was in a quandary, but he did not lose heart. 
He had nothing to complain of during his stay with 
Prince Sobiesky, for he was well lodged and treated 
with the most flattering attentions, but the real business 
of the mission hung fire. Still he waited he had long 
learned the game of patience and, being a courtier, was 
used to waiting. At length a happy accident turned 



ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA 271 

the scale in his favour. On New Year's Day, Prince 
Sobiesky, as a mark of his esteem, presented his guest 
with a magnificent snuff-box, formed of a single tur- 
quoise set in gold, a family heirloom, and part of the 
treasure found by John Sobiesky in the famous scarlet 
pavilion of Kara Mustapha. Wogan, with a charming 
gesture, declined the gift on the plea that, although he 
was sensible of the high honour shown Mrq by the 
Prince, he could not think of returning to Italy with 
a present for himself and a refusal for his master. The 
Prince was so touched that he finally yielded, and 
furnished Wogan with the necessary instructions to 
his wife and daughter. Wogan set out once more on 
his adventures in high spirits, carrying not only the 
precious instructions, but the snuff-box, which Prince 
Sobiesky had pressed on him as a parting gift. 

The next thing was to establish secret communica- 
tion with the Princess. This was more easily said 
than done. The garrulity of Prince Sobiesky, who in 
his parental agitation had babbled the whole story to 
a certain German baron, and the suspicions of the 
Countess de Berg, a noted intriguante and spy of the 
Austrian court, almost brought Wogan's mission to an 
inglorious end. The baron was bought over at " con- 
siderable expenditure," but the Countess was a more 



272 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

difficult matter. While Wogan was the guest of honour 
of Prince Sobiesky she had been puzzled at the atten- 
tions shown to him, which she argued could be for no 
good end, and set her spies on his track. Wogan 
escaped by the skin of Ms teeth, and only evaded 
capture by ostentatiously announcing his departure 
for Prague. Then by a skilful detour he gave his 
pursuers the slip and posted on to Vienna, where he 
vainly tried to enlist the sympathy of the Papal 
Nuncio, Monseigneur Spinola. 

Then came a thunderbolt, for suddenly Prince 
Sobiesky changed his mind. He dispatched an urgent 
message to Wogan saying that both the Princess and 
her mother, alarmed at the dangers that encompassed 
them, had resolved to proceed no further in the 
business, and that he forthwith cancelled his previous 
instructions. 

Here was a pretty kettle of fish I Wogan was a 
stout-hearted fellow, but this new blow almost un- 
manned him. In his dilemma he wrote to the Cheva- 
lier and told the whole story, asking him at the same 
time to send a confidential servant to obtain fresh 
powers from Prince Sobiesky. The Chevalier promptly 
dispatched one of Ms valets, a Florentine called 
Michael Vezzosi, who, when attached to a Venetian 



ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA 273 

Embassy in London, had been instrumental in aiding 
the escape of Lord Nithsdale from the Tower. The 
Chevalier reminded Prince Sobiesky that by his f oolish 
behaviour he was not only needlessly endangering the 
lives of Wogan and his friends, but adding to the 
difficulties of the captives at Innsbruck. He also gave 
the most explicit instructions to Wogan to proceed 
with the enterprise. 

Wogan accordingly set out for Sehlettstadt, where 
he met his three kinsmen, Major Gaydon and Captains 
Misset and O'Toole, who were to lend their aid in 
the now difficult mission. Mrs. Misset accompanied 
her husband, together with her maid Jeanneton, but 
neither of the women was told the real nature of the 
undertaking. Jeanneton was to play a conspicuous 
part in the escape of Clementina. Wogan's plan was 
that the maid should change places with the Princess 
and generally impersonate her till she had made good 
her escape. The light-headed girl was told a cock-and- 
bull story about O'Toole having fallen violently in 
love with a beautiful heiress, and Wogan played to 
such a tune on her sense of the romantic that she 
gleefully entered into the plot of the " elopement." 

Wogan, however} was not yet out of the wood, So 
far he had succeeded, but he had now to deal with the 



274 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

whims and caprice of the ladies wlio liad been pressed 
into the enterprise. Jeanneton, whose importance to 
the success of the venture was paramount, proved 
especially troublesome. First of all she refused point- 
blank to wear the low-heeled shoes wMch had been 
specially ordered for her, so as to reduce her height to 
conformity with that of the Princess ; and not only 
screamed and swore, but went so far in her tantrums 
as to knock the shoemaker down. She had once been 
a camp-follower, and her manners were those of the 
tented field. It was not until Mrs. Misset, in an excess 
of despair, had thrown herself imploringly at her feet, 
a ceremony in which the gentlemen of the party were 
constrained to join, that the maid relented, and the 
party set forth at last in a ramshackle berline for 
Innsbruck. 

So far so good. At an inn between Nassereith and 
Innsbruck, while the other members of the party 
regaled themselves with a banquet of wild boar and 
sauerkraut, Wogan stole out in the rain to keep an 
important appointment with a certain M. Chateau- 
doux, gentleman-usher to the Princess Sobiesky. This 
gentleman had not Wogan's spirit, and proposed to 
defer the matter of the escape till the weather had 
cleared and the roads were in better condition for travel. 



ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA 275 

Wogan firmly waived aside Ms objections, and suc- 
ceeded so well in convincing TITTTI that now or never 
was the time, that at half -past eleven that same night 
he and the precious Jeanneton made their way in the 
storm to the schloss where the Princess was confined. 
Fortune smiled on the enterprise, and even the tem- 
pest was propitious, for the sentry, heedless of danger 
on such a night, had sought refuge in the inn. 

Meanwhile within the prison walls the Princess 
Clementina, in order to assist the plan of escape, was 
playing the part of an invalid. Jeanneton's role was 
simple. The Princess having regained her freedom, 
all that the maid had to do was to keep her bed on the 
plea that her megrims were no better, refusing to see 
any one but her mother. The secret was well kept ; 
not even the governess waa. told, lest her grief at the 
sudden departure of the Princess might arouse sus- 
picions. 

At midnight, according to plan, Chateaudoux was in 
readiness, and Jeanneton, clad in a shabby riding hood 
and female surtout, was successfully smuggled into 
the sleeping chamber of the Princess. Wogan and 
O'Toole waited at the street corner ready to convoy 
the Princess to the inn. There was a lengthy farewell 
scene, between the Princess and her mother. The two 



276 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

having wept and embraced each other, Clementina 
excused herself for her hurried departure on the plea 
that nothing in heaven or earth must stand in the 
way between her and her husband. Then she hastily 
dressed herself in Jeanneton's clothes, and followed 
Chateaudoux down the winding stairs and out into 
the night. 

The Princess was no longer a captive. The tempest, 
which had increased, favoured the escape. Once more 
successfully evading the sentry, 'they quickly gained 
the street corner where Wogan and O'Toole were 
kicking their heels, consumed with fear and anxiety. 
They reached the inn, drenched to the skin, with but 
one slight misadventure. Clementina, mistaking a 
floating wisp of hay for a solid log of wood, slipped 
and plunged over the ankles into a channel of half- 
melted snow. At the inn she eagerly swallowed a 
cup of hot spiced wine and changed her soaking gar- 
ments, Konski, her mother's page, had foUowed 
meanwhile with what the chronicles of the period 
call "inside apparel" and a casket containing her 
jewels, said to be valued at about 150,000 pistoles. The 
foolish Konski, no doubt scared out of his wits at his 
share in the adventure, had thrown the precious packet 
behind the door and taken ignomirtiously to his heels, 



ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA 277 

They were now ready for the road. Captain Misset, 
who had gone out to reconnoitre, having returned 
with a favourable report, off they started. The inn 
was silent and shuttered, everybody having retired 
for the night including the landlady; so they stole 
off unobserved. As the ancient coach lumbered past 
the dismal schloss where the Princess had been so 
recently a prisoner, she could not restrain some natural 
emotion at the thought of her mother; and then 
suddenly she discovered the loss of the precious packet. 
Here was a nice to-do ! There was nothing for it 
but to return to the inn and fetch the packet. O'Toole 
was entrusted with this anxious mission. By one 
more stroke of good fortune he succeeded in retrieving 
it from behind the door where the careless Konski 
had thrown it, but he had first to prise the door off 
its crazy hinges. 

At sunset the party reached the village of Brenner, 
where the Princess, who had so far borne up nobly, 
had a slight attack of the vapours. She was speedily 
revived, however, by a dose of eau de Cannes, and, 
having had a meal, soon regained her accustomed 
gaiety, and began to ply Wogan with all sorts of inno- 
cent questions about the manners and customs of the 
English and his adventures with the Chevalier in 



278 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

Scotland. One by one the party dropped off to sleep, 
all but Wogan, who as the Master of the Ceremonies, 
managed to keep himself awake by the expedient of 
taking prodigious pinches of snuff. At last even he, 
overcome by the ardours of the night, began to show 
signs of drowsiness. While dropping off to sleep, his 
snuff-box accidentally slipped from his lap and fell 
on to the curls of the Princess, who with her head rest- 
ing against his knees was reposing at the bottom of 
the carriage. 

Verona was still a journey of forty-six hours, and 
the party were much inconvenienced by the lack of 
post-horses. To their horror they discovered that 
they were travelling in the wake of the Princess of 
Baden and her son, one of the husbands who had been 
proposed for Clementina, and whom she had heen 
actually bribed to marry ! At another stage of the 
journey the coachman was drunk, and they were only 
saved by a miracle from being dashed to pieces at 
the foot of one of the precipitous gorges of the Adige. 

They were now approaching the most difficult 
part of the journey, and it was arranged before they 
passed the frontier of the Venetian States that O'Toole 
and Misset should remain behind to intercept any 
messengers from Innsbruck and guard the retreat. 



ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA 279 

This prescience was amply rewarded. O'Toole tad 
soon the satisfaction of waylaying a courier who had 
been dispatched in hot pursuit of the fugitive. The 
fellow was not only put entirely off the scent, but 
at supper was plied so generously with old brandy 
that he had to be carried drunk to bed. Having re- 
lieved him of his documents the cavaliers rode on to 
rejoin the party in the berline. 

One or two trials had still to be overcome. At 
Trent there was some delay owing to the behaviour 
of a surly Governor who put every obstacle in their 
way. There was besides the continual fear of Clemen- 
tina being detected by her Highness of Baden, who had 
installed herself in state at the inn. The poor little 
Princess had perforce to remain hidden at the bottom 
of the coach in the public square until such time as they 
could obtain fresh relays. The best they could find 
was a couple of tired screws taken from a neighbouring 
field. At Roveredo things were even worse, as no 
horses were to be had at all ; and to crown their mis- 
fortunes they had not proceeded six miles with their 
weary beasts when the axle of the ramshackle old 
berline broke ! 

But at length they reached the great white wall 
that denoted the boundary between the Venetian 



280 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

States and the dominions of tlie Emperor. At half- 
past three in the morning they stole across the fron- 
tier and solemnly offered up a Te Deum for their safe 
deliverance. They reached Pery with the bells merrily 
tinging for Mass, and narrowly missed being recognized 
by the Princess of Baden, who with her son was just 
entering the church when the berline drew up at the 
church door. 

Verona was reached at dusk, and here for the first 
time during the three days' journey the Princess had 
her hair dressed. They came to Bologna on 2nd May, 
where the Princess sent a message to the Cardinal 
Origo announcing her arrival. The Cardinal speedily 
repaired to pay his respects, bringing the present of 
a "toyley, artificial flowers, and other little things," 
and the offer of a box at the Opera. More welcome 
and important than the courtesies of the Cardinal 
was the arrival of Mr. Murray, the Chevalier's agent, 
with messages from his royal master. 

The drama of the royal elopement draws to its 
close. On 9th May Clementina was married by proxy. 
The little Princess, all agog with excitement, rose 
at 5 a.m., and having attired herself in a white dress 
and a pearl necklace went to Mass and received 
the Holy Communion* The marriage ceremony was 



ESCAPE OF PRINCESS CLEMENTINA 281 



performed by an English, priest. The Chevalier 
represented by Mr. Murray, with Wogan as witness, 
and Prince Sobiesky by the Marquis of Monte-Bou- 
larois, a loyal friend of the Stuart cause. The 
" powers " of the Chevalier were read publicly on con- 
clusion of the Mass, setting forth his willingness to 
marry the Princess Clementina Sobiesky, and the cere- 
mony was forthwith performed with the ring which 
he had sent expressly for the purpose. 

The Princess entered Rome on 15th May, amid 
general rejoicings ; and on 2nd September a public 
marriage was celebrated at Montefiascone. 

The daring flight and escape of the Princess Clemen- 
tina caused some sensation at the time, and a medal 
was struck to commemorate the event. The Che- 
valier created Wogan a baronet, as well as his three 
kinsmen, and Wogan had the further distinction of 
being made a Roman Senator by Pope Clement XI. 
Jeanneton, who had played her part well, apart 
from the regrettable incident of the low-heeled shoes, 
duly escaped from Innsbruck and was sent to Rome 
as the maid of the Duchess of Parma. Prince Sobiesky 
was exiled to Passau by the Emperor for his complicity 
in the business, and was also deprived of a couple of 
valuable duchies. Wogan, who had always been 



282 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

something of a poet, devoted the remainder of his life 
to the cultivation of the Muse, his efforts drawing 
encomiums from so severe a critic as Dean Swift, to 
whom he had sent a copy of his verses in " a bag of 
green velvet embroidered in gold." He died in 1747. 
As for the Princess, her wedded life did not fulfil 
the romantic promise of its beginnings. Married to 
a worthy but doleful husband, she never sat on the 
throne which she had been promised. She was the 
mother of Prince Charles Edward, and seems to have 
fallen into delicate health, for in one of his boyish 
letters, the little Prince promises not to jump or maker 
a noise so as to " disturb mamma." 



xn 

ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 



ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 

THE land between the deserts of Turkestan and the 
plains of India and between the Persian plateau and 
China still remains the least known and the most 
difficult on the globe. There are to be found the 
highest mountains in the world a confusion of mighty 
snow-clad ranges varied by icy uplands and deep-cut, 
inaccessible valleys. Old roads cross it which have 
been caravan routes since the days of Alexander the 
Great, but these roads are few and far between. One, 
perhaps the most famous, goes from Kashmir across 
the Indus and over the Karakoram Pass to Khotan 
and Yarkand. That pass is 18,550 feet, the highest 
in the world which still serves the purpose of an 
avenue of trade. 

This wild upland is not the place where one would 
look for hurried journeys. The country is too intri- 
cate, the inhabitants are too few, and there man's 
life seems a trifling thing against the background 

285 



286 ESCAPES AND ETJRRIED JOURNEYS 

of eternal ice. Yet I have heard of two long, stub- 
born chases in that no-man's-land, the tale of which 
is worth telling. 



The first concerns the Karakoram Pass. Till the 
other day, on the cairn which marked the summit, 
there lay a marble slab engraved with a man's name. 
It recorded a murder which took place in that out- 
landish spot in the year 1880. 

At that time in those parts there was a young Scots- 
man called Dalgleish, who used to accompany travellers 
and hunters on their expeditions. He was also a 
trader, making long journeys across Central Asia, 
and in his business had dealings with a certain Pathan 
called Dad Mahomed Khan. This Pathan had been 
a trader and a bit of a smuggler, and was well known 
on the road between Yarkand and Ladakh. The two 
used to have ventures together, and were apparently 
good friends. 

A year or two before Dalgleish had gone off on a 
long expedition into Tibet, and in his absence things 
went badly with Dad Mahomed. All Ms ponies 
were destroyed in a storm in the passes, and thia 



ON THE ROOF OP THE WORLD 287 

compelled him to resort to Hindu money-lenders. 
Luck continued obstinately against Mm, and he found 
iiniself unable to repay Ms loans. The result was that 
his creditor' brought the matter before the British 
Commissioi er at Leh, and he was forbidden to trade 
on the Yarkand-Leh road until he had paid his 
debts. 

The upshot was that the Pathan fell into evil ways, 
and Dalgleish, when he returned from his expedition, 
found Mm living at Leh in idleness and poverty. 
Desiring to help his old colleague, Dalgleish invited 
him to join Mm, and tried to get the Commissioner 
to withdraw the injunction. But the Commissioner 
refused, so Dalgleish set off alone for the north with 
a small caravan. On the way he halted and wrote 
back to Dad Mahomed, asking Mm to follow him. 
This the Pathan did, and the two continued on 
the long road up the Karakoram Pass. Dalgleish 
gave Dad Mahomed a tent and a riding horse, and 
instructed Ms servants to treat bi-m as they treated 
Mmself. 

They camped north of the Karakoram Pass, and 
one afternoon were observed to walk out together, 
the Pathan carrying Dalgleish's rifle. Then came 
the sound of a shot, but the servants took no notice, 



288 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

as game was plentiful around the camp. Presently 
however, Dad Mahomed returned and informed them 
that he had shot the Sahib. The servants ran to 
their master, and Dad Mahomed followed, having 
provided himself with a tulwar. Dalgleish was only 
wounded in the shoulder, and the Pathan then attacked 
frim and brutally murdered him. He drove back the 
servants to their tent, warning them that if they left 
it he would kill them. 

Dad Mahomed took possession of Dalgleish's tent, 
and in the morning ordered the horses to be loaded 
and the caravan to proceed. At the end of the next 
stage he told the servants that they could do what 
they liked with the merchandise, and he himself rode 
off on Dalgleish's horse. What the motive for the 
murder was it is impossible to say ; it could not have 
been robbery, for Dalgleish had a large sum in notes 
which was found untouched. The servants took the 
caravan back to the Karakoram Pass, picked up 
Dalgleish' s body, and returned to Leh. 

The British Raj now took up the case. Dad Ma- 
homed was found guilty of murder, and a large reward 
was offered for his capture. But to find a Pathan 
who had had many days' start in Central Asia was 
like looking for a needle in a haystack. Nevertheless, 



ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 289 

It was essential for British prestige that the murderer 
should be found. 

Colonel Bower, the well-known traveller, was at 
that time at Kashgar, where he received a letter from 
the Indian Government bidding Mm arrest Dad Ma- 
homed at all costs and bring him back to India for 
trial. It appeared that Dad Mahomed had been 
recently in Kashgar boasting of his deed. The Chinese 
authorities did not molest Mm, and it was found 
impossible to entice him inside the grounds of the 
Russian Consulate. 

Colonel Bower's mission was kept a profound secret. 
The Pathan appeared to have left Kashgar, going 
east, some weeks before. A Hindu merchant was 
discovered who had a bitter hatred of the murderer, 
and plans were concerted. Emissaries were sent 
throughout Central Asia to make inquiry. They 
were furnished with letters explaining their purpose, 
but these letters were only to be used when they 
found their man; otherwise their inquiries must 
be made secretly, and they had to pose as ordinary 
travellers. 

Two of them went into Afghanistan, a troublesome 
country to journey in. They were arrested in Balkh, 
and declared that they were doctors looking for rare 



290 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

plants. Fortunately the Amir, Abdur Rahman, hap- 
pened to be close at hand, and the two men asked to 
be taken before him. They gave him Colonel Bower's 
letter to read, and the Amir smiled grimly. These 
men, he told his entourage, are honest and are what 
they profess to be. They will not, however, find the 
plant they seek in Afghanistan; but, he added, he 
had heard that it grew in Bokhara. The two were 
released and given presents of money and clothes. 

Colonel Bower himself had gone east from Kashgar, 
on the trail which the Pathan was believed to have 
taken. One day a man came to his camp and asked 
his nationality. Bower said he came from India, and 
ids visitor expressed his astonishment, for he thought 
that the people of India were black. He added that in 
the neighbourhood theie was another foreigner, and 
nobody knew where he carro from a tall man not 
unlike the Sahib. He lived in the jungle and earned 
money by wood-cutting. This convinced Bower that 
he was on the track of the fugitive, but when he reached 
the place mentioned his man was gone. The news 
of the arrival of an Englishman from India had been 
enough for Dad Mahomed. 

Months passed and nothing happened, and Colonel 
Bower had begun to think his task hopeless, when 



ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 291 

suddenly there came news from Samarkand that the 
Pathan had been caught there and was now in a Rus- 
sian prison. Two of the emissaries who had gone 
in that direction had arrived in Samarkand, and had 
found Dad Mahomed sitting on a box in the bazaar. 
One of them stopped and engaged him in conversa- 
tion, while the other went off to the Governor, who 
happened to be the famous General Kuropatkin. 
Kuropatkin, on opening Bower's letter, at once sent 
a party of Cossacks to the bazaar and had Dad 
Mahomed arrested. 

It was arranged to send him to India, and prepara- 
tions were made for an armed escort to bring hin back 
over the Russian border ; but news arrived that the 
criminal had cheated justice, for he had hung himself 
in his cell. Nevertheless the power of itr British 
law was vindicated, and the story of the unrelenting 
pursuit throughout Central Asia had an immense moral 
effect in all that mountain country. The tale of it 
was repeated at camp-fires and bazaars everywhere 
between Persia and China, till the Great War, with its 
far wilder romances, came to dim its memory. 



292 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

II 

The break-up of Russia after tlie Bolsheviks seized 
the Government had extraordinary results in every 
part of the old Russian Empire, but in none more 
extraordinary than in the Central Asian Provinces. 
It was like some strange chemical dropped into an 
innocent compound and altering every constituent. 
The old cradle of the Aryan races was in an uproar. 
In the ancient khanates of Bokhara and Samarkand 
names sung in poetry for two thousand years < 
strange governments arose, talking half-understood 
Western communism. Everywhere the ferment was 
felt : in Tashkend, in Yarkand, in Afghanistan, in the 
Pamirs, and along the Indian border. Austrian and 
German prisoners set free in Siberia were trying to 
fight their way towards the Caspian ; tribes of brigands 
seized the occasion for guerrilla warfare and general 
looting ; and Bolshevik propaganda penetrated by 
strange channels through the passes into India. The 
Armistice in Europe made very little difference to this 
pandemonium. Central Asia was in a confusion which 
it had scarcely known since the days of Tamerlane. 

In this witches' sabbath of disaster appeared one 
or two British officers striving to keep the King's 



ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 293 

peace on and beyond the frontier. One of these, 
Captain L. V. S. Blacker, had been badly wounded 
in the Flying Corps in France. Then he rejoined 
his old regiment, ike Guides ; and in July 1918 was in 
lashkend looking af xer Bratish interests in the face 
of a parody of Government which called itself a Soviet. 
After that he made his way south into the Pamirs 
and fetched up at Tashkurghan, on one of the sources 
of the Yarkand River. He had with him seven men 
of the Guides. 

There he heard from an Afghan merchant that about 
a hundred armed men Afghans, but probably led by 
Germans and Turks had been seen in the upper 
gorges of the Tashkurghan River. * This matter 
required looking into. Having only seven men he 
went to the little Russian fort adjoining and succeeded 
in borrowing twelve Cossacks. The place was in the 
Chinese Pamirs and the local Amban was trouble- 
some about horses, but Captain Blacker managed 
to raise sufficient from Hindu traders. Mounted on 
their ponies, and with a single pack-horse carrying 
rations, the expedition started by descending the 

* Captain. Blacker has told this story in his excellent book, On 
Secret Patrol in High Asia (John Murray), one of the best narrativea 
&f adventure published in recent years. 



294 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

river till a place was found where it could be forded. 
They reached the spot where the enemy band had 
been last heard of, but found no tracks on the goat- 
path leading up to the high passes. But this was pro- 
bably the direction of the enemy, so they crossed the 
ridge which divided their valley from Taghdumbash. 

It was late October and bitterly cold on the high 
hills. At a village called Wacha they still found no 
tracks of the band, so they halted tV-re and sent out 
patrols along the possible routes. K'ext morning 
they decided that the Cossacks should stop at Wacha, 
while Captain Blacker and his Guides crossed the ridge 
back to Taghdumbash to try and pick up the trail. 
Their journey took them over a high pass, called 
"The Thieves' Pass," and as the weather was fine 
their spirits rose. Still there was no sign of the 
enemy, and they were compelled to go back to Tash- 
kurghan and spend the night there in a house. 

Early next morning they started again for Dafdar, 
and covered the forty miles thither in eight hours. In 
these high latitudes even a Kirghiz pony cannot manage 
more than five miles an hour. At Dafdar they hunted 
up the Beg and from him they had news. Fifteen wild- 
looking strangers, mounted on big horses and with 
rifles at their backs, had several nights before ridden 



ON THE ROOF OE THE WORLD 295 

through the village, and a shepherd had recently 
seen their tracks in a patch of snow. Clearly it was 
the gang who had come from the Russian Pamirs, 
for ordinary traders do not travel in that guise, or, 
indeed, travel these roads at all in early winter. They 
might be opium smugglers, or smugglers of Bolshevik 
propaganda, or enemy agents commissioned to make 
trouble in North India. Anyhow, it was Captain 
Slacker's business to round them up and make 
certain. 

That night he sent one of his N.C.O.s sixteen males 
up the valley on the roaci to India, where there was 
a post of the Gilgit Scouts, with instructions to 
beg half a dozen rifles and a pony-load of barley 
meal. The rendezvous was fixed on the IH-Su upland. 
Next morning, accordingly, the expedition was joined 
by half a dozen men of the Scouts a wild lot with 
their Dard caps, and their long hair, and their un- 
tanned leggings. The Gilgit Scouts did not bother 
with transport, but came with what they stood up in. 
Ten screws from Daf dar were commandeered and loads 
were made up ; and, says Captain Blacker, " each 
man strapped his sheepskin coat and a blanket to 
the strait saddle-tree of the Pamir, filled his mess-tin 
and his oil bottle, thrust a length of c 4 by 2 * in his 



296 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

haversack, and was ready for an eight-hundred mile 
hunt through desolation." 

The weather had changed and the leaden sky pro- 
mised snow. All around were the snowy Mustagh 
peaks, rising to 25,000 feet and more, while before 
lay a wind-swept icy tableland. It was hard going 
in such weather, and they took five hours to reach 
the banks of the Oprang River. There they found 
a Kirghiz encampment, and learned from them that, 
seven nights before, fifteen well-mounted men had 
filed past the tents in the darkness. A night was 
spent in the encampment, and there arrived the 
N.C.O. who had been sent to the post of the Gilgit 
Scouts, bringing with him ponies and part of the 
barley meal. 

It was snowing in the morning, and pushing up the 
Ei-Su valley they found on the shale of the ravines 
clearly marked tracks of men. It was a severe climb, 
for the slopes were ice-coated, and the ponies had to 
be dragged up to the crest of the pass. On the top 
once more they came on the prints of men and horses 
prints which they were to know pretty exactly 
during the next fourteen days. The pass of Hi-Su 
was some 17,000 feet. The farther valley proved very- 
rough ; but late in the afternoon it opened out, and 



ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 297 



the night was spent in wet snow tinder a cliff, 
enough brushwood could be found to make a fire. 
Every night it was necessary to cook enough barley 
scones to serve for the next day. 

The following morning the snow was falling reso- 
lutely, but they pursued the course down the steep 
banks of the stream. The enemy tracks were still 
clear, and it was plain that their mounts were the big 
horses of Badakshan. The band had a long start, 
and the only chance of catching them up was to start 
very early and finish very late no light task in such 
weather and in such a country. Farther down the 
valley they found the ashes of a fire and a new china 
tea cup lately broken in half, with, on the bottom, 
the legend " Made in Japan." It was certain now 
that they were on the right road ; for Kirghiz shepherds 
do not own china cups. Where was the band heading ? 
Not for India probably for Yarkand ; possibly for 
some place still farther east. It was therefore neces- 
sary for Captain Blacker to turn south-east up the 
Raskam River, and plunge into the wild tangle of the 
Karakoram mountains. 

After eight hours' hard going they came to a place 
called Hot Springs, where once more they found 
traces of their quarry, some horses' droppings, a heap 



298 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

of pigeons 5 feathers, and some empty cartridge cases. 
After that the cliff sides closed in and they struggled 
for hours in the darkness through a narrow gorge, 
till they came to a place at a lower altitude where 
there were brushwood for fire and grass to cut for 
bedding. 

Off again next morning ; still up the Raskam valley 
with the great buttresses of the Kuen-lun on the 
north bank, and far away on the right the slopes of 
the Mustagh. If the tracks led up the river bank 
the enemy was bound for Khotan ; if across the stream, 
for Yarkand. Apparently they crossed, and it was no 
easy matter following them, for the river was swollen 
with snow. On the other side with some difficulty 
they picked up the trail again, and found it moving 
towards the slopes of the Kuen-lun. Clearly the 
enemy was bound for Yarkand or Karghalik. 

They had a tough climb to the top of the pass, and 
once more the trackers were at fault. Some tracks 
led eastward to the edge of a dizzy precipice, which 
was clearly not the way. Others, however, plunged 
down a slope into a gorge full of thorns, and there 
they discovered traces of the enemy's bivouac. Thia 
was at midday, which showed that the pursuit was 
gaining. 



ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 299 

In the afternoon they fought their way through 
a tangle of undergrowth till they arrived at a Kir- 
ghiz encampment, where they managed to buy barley. 
In one tent they found a young Kirghiz lad whom 
they took along with them as a guide. As it turned 
out, his father was guiding the enemy. 

The expedition was now in better spirits, for they 
had food in their saddle-bags and knew that they 
were not bound for the icy deserts of the Karakoranx 
Down a little north-running valley they went, and 
again they came upon dung, which they judged to 
be five days old. The tracks led down the valley, 
and suddenly ceased abruptly. Was it possible that 
the gang were hiding in the neighbouring brushwood ? 
They beat the place in vain, and were compelled to 
return the way they had come. Then they discovered 
a narrow cleft in the rocks, which proved to be the 
mouth of a side Valley, and in it they again came on 
the trail. 

The night was spent on a tiny patch of grass under 
the cliffs, while their meal was of girdle cakes made 
with the newly bought barley, and some of the last 
of their tea, " A cheerful spot," says Captain Blacker, 
"but better, at any rate, than the trenches before 
La Bassee in February 1915." 



300 ESCAPES AND HUERIED JOURNEYS 

Next day they still climbed, and at midday found 
more relics of the enemy, a copper kettle, a cauldron, 
and a goatskin full of butter, which had apparently 
been too heavy to carry. Then they crossed a very 
lofty snow-pass, and before them saw the steep ranges 
of the Kuen-lun. Down one ridge and up another 
they went, still following the track, and at one stop- 
ping-place they found a dead quail and a straw cage. 
This proved that there was at least one Pathan in 
the gang, for it is the Pathan's endearing habit to 
carry tame birds in the folds of his raiment. 

They were now in a perfectly desolate upland with- 
out grass or water or fuel, and their food was rapidly 
failing. They had one and a half day's rations in 
hand, consisting only of barley flour and a very little 
tea and sugar. A lucky shot by Captain Blacker at 
a young burhal the day before had given them some 
meat, but this was all they had had for a week. The 
country too, was becoming desperately rocky. If the 
Pamirs was the roof of the world it seemed to Cap- 
tain Blacker that he was now climbing among the 
chimney-pots. Sometimes on the summit of a pass 
they had to dig with hands and bayonets a way for 
the ponies. The ponies, too, began to die. 

At last, after several days' severe labour, they 



ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 301 

descended from the heights to gentler elevations, 
and found Kirghiz encampments, where they could 
get fresh barley and now and then a sheep. They 
were on the lower foot-hills of the Kuen-lun now, and 
were looking again at fields and crops. They were 
able also to acquire fresh horses. Up a long valley 
they went, still finding traces of the enemy's bivouacs. 
They had to stop sometimes to mend their footgear 
with yak's hide ; and they had now and then a piece 
of luck, as where they came to the house of a certain 
Kirghiz Beg, who lent them guides. Once again 
they had mountains to cross, lower passes but rockier, 
and breaking down into deep gorges. Often they 
marched fifteen hours in a day. 

At last they reached a village where they had in- 
telligence of the enemy. They learned that the gang 
were only forty-eight hours ahead, which meant that 
thay had gained five or six days on them in the last 
eight. The destination was clearly Yarkand, and 
there was always a risk of losing them in that city. 
Here, too, the trail gave out, for the sheep and goats 
of the villagers had smothered it, so they had to hire 
a guide. 

But the way he led them showed no tracks. They 
could only push on and hope to cut the trail again 



302 ESCAPES AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

from the eastward. After crossing a pass of 15,000 feet 
they came to a narrow valley, which led them to the 
river Pokhpu, running north and south. No vestige 
of a trail, however, could be found on its banks, so 
they forded the stream and ascended a gorge upon 
the other side. This took them over a 15,000 feet 
ridge and down into another valley and then into 
another. It ended in a gigantic chasm where in the 
moonlight a huge excrescence of rock showed exactly 
like an ace of spades. Captain Blacker took this 
for a good omen; but there was still a fourth pass 
to cross, and at four in the morning the expedition 
flung itself down, utterly exhausted, in a waterless 
valley called after the Angel Gabriel. In that single 
day's march they had climbed up and down something 
like 30,000 feet from seven o'clock of one morning 
to four o'clock of the next. 

The ace of spades had not misled them, for soon 
after they started they met an old Kirghiz a Hadji 
by his green turban. He was rather taken aback 
by the sight of them, bat said he had been sent by a 
Chinese mandarin to meet a certain guest. This made 
Captain Blacker suspicious, so he boldly answered 
that he was the guest in question. The old Hadji 
was added to the party , and conducted them to the 



ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 303 

village of Kokyir, where they had at last a reasonable 
meal. 

At midnight again they were off, after five hours' 
sleep, marching north-eastward by the compass, and 
hoping to get back on the trail they had lost. Pres- 
ently they were among the sand dunes of a desert, and 
then among the irrigation channels of the lower Ras- 
kam River. It was midnight when they found them- 
selves in the latter labyrinth ; so Captain Blacker 
ordered the Hadji to find some one without delay who 
would show him the way out. It was an unfortunate 
step, for it landed them in a leper-house. There 
was nothing for it but to march on through the night, 
and in the small hours of the next morning they were 
within sight of Yarkand. 

There, early in the forenoon, the expedition, now 
lean, weather-beaten, and tattered to the last degree, 
stood outside the ancient walls of Yarkand. One of 
the Guides entered the city, disguised, to find an 
acquaintance, from whom he heard to his delight 
that a party of wild-looking strangers had entered 
the streets eighteen hours before. Indeed, the man 
knew where they were. They were now in the Sarai 
Badakshan. Captain Blacker had not ridden hard 
for a fortnight among the wildest mountains on earth 



304 ESCAPES' AND HURRIED JOURNEYS 

to stand on ceremony in any town. His sixteen men 
cantered down the alleys of Yarkand, and presently 
flung open the gates of the Sarai. 

There the quarry was found. Every hand in the 
Sarai went up without delay when its inmates heard 
the challenge, and saw behind the gleaming bayonets 
the sixteen gaunt, wolfish faces of their pursuers. 



THE EKD 



$ 




114280